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A    MEMORIAL   ARCH. 


Sprague,    photo. 


^   / 


FROM  W^ESTERN  CHINA  TO  THE 
GOLDEN  GATE 


THE 

EXPERIENCES  OF  AN   AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY 

GRADUATE  IN  THE  ORIENT 


WITH  THIRTY  ILLUSTRATIONS 

'2.1  ^7  2 


By- 

ROGER  SPRAGUE 


BERKELEY 

LEDERER,  STREET  &  ZEUS  CO. 

1911 


COPYRIGHT   1911 
BY  ROGER  SPRAGUE 


FOR  SALE  BY  THE  GLESSNER- MORSE  CO. 

2163  SHATTUCK  AVE..  BERKELEY,  CALIFORNIA 

PRICE,  POSTPAID,  85  CENTS 


'I  U 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

FROM   WESTERN   CHINA   TO   THE   GOLDEN    GATE 

Chapter  Page 

I.    THE    PLACE    FROM    WHICH    THE    START 

WAS     MADE     7 

II.    THE    START     15 

III.  WESTERN     CHINA    SCENERY 19 

IV.  TRAVELLING    BY    RAFT 28 

V.     MT.   OMEI   AND  THE   GREAT   BUDDHA....  35 

VI.     THE  LONELY   MISSION   STATION."^ 43 

VII.     INTERESTING    SIGHTS    50 

VIII.    A    CHINESE    INN    CJ  .* 57 

IX.     DOWN     THE     RIVER 69 

X.    LIES   TOLD   TO   TRAVELLERS,  .i. 77 

XL'    FROM    SHANGHAI    TO   SAN   FRANCISCO...   83 

RECENT   AND    RADICAL   CHANGES 9^ 

POSTSCRIPT     127 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

1.  A     MEMORIAL     ARCH Frontispiece 

2.  IN   THE   PROVINCIAL   COLLEGE 9 

3.  A  STREAM   IN   CHENTU 11 

4.  SOUTH   GATE   BRIDGE,   CHENTU 13 

5.  SEDAN     CHAIR 17 

6.  A  CHINESE   FARM   HOUSE 21 

7.  ON   THE   CHENTU   PLAIN 23 

8.  RICE     FIELDS 25 

9.  PAGODA   AT    LOY    KIANG 26 

10.  BIRD'S-EYE  VIEW  OF  YAH  JO 29 

11.  TEMPLE    IN    KIATING 33 

12.  THE    GREAT    BUDDHA 39 

13.  THE  GREAT   STONE   FACE 41 

14.  THE    LONELY    MISSION    STATION 45 

15.  ENTRANCE  TO  A  GUILD  HALL,  ZID-ZO 47 

16.  AT   A    CONFUCIAN   TEMPLE 48 

17.  MEMORIAL   ARCH    ERECTED    IN    1902 52, 

18.  CARVING   ON    THE   ARCH . .   53 

19.  A   COVERED    BRIDGE 59 

20.  JUNK  SAILING  UP  THE   GORGES 74 

21.  AMERICAN    HOSPITAL,    CHUNGKING 76 

22.  ON  THE   BUND   AT   SHANGHAI • 85 

23.  PAGODA   AT    DAY    YANG 95 

24.  A   TEMPLE   NEAR   CHENTU 98 

25.  A  BRIDGE  IN  THE  TEMPLE  GROUNDS 102 

26.  THE   TEMPLE    STAIRS 108 

27.  INCENSE    BURNER 112 

28.  SERVANT    AND    POLICEMAN 116 

29.  A    COUNTRY    HOME 120 

30.  A   SHADY    LANE 124 


FROM   WESTERN   CHINvV   TO   THE   GOLDEN 

GATE. 


^/  373 
THE  PLACE  FROM  WHICH  THE  START  W^\S 

MADE 

In  making  the  following  journey,  the  writer 
returned  to  America  from  a  region  in  full  view 
of  the  immense  snowy  peaks  of  Thibet.     He 
first  travelled  by  sedan  chair,  carried  on  men's 
shoulders;  next,  by  bamboo  raft,  shooting  tem- 
pestuous   rapids   where   the   water    roared    and 
dashed  over  cruel  black  rocks  ranged  on  either 
^    hand;    then,    by    native    junks    both    large    and 
^    small;  next,  by  a  small  Japanese  river  steamer; 
'^    next,   by  a  large  Japanese   river  steamer;   and 
^    finally,  by  an  immense  Japanese  ocean  liner  of 
21,000     tons     displacement,     twenty-two     knots 
speed.     Many  and  varied  were  the  experiences 
by  the  way,  of  which  the  following  rapid  sum- 
mary will  give  some  slight  idea.     In  telling  the 
story,  the  writer  has  been  impelled  by  the  notion 
that,  since  in  these  days  American  schoolmen 
are  frequently  called  to  China  to  teach  in  the 


8 

government  schools,  the  experiences  of  such  a 
man  while  returning  from  his  post  at  a  point 
far  in  the  interior  of  that  country,  would  be  of 
interest  to  the  general  public. 

I  wish  to  transport  you  to  a  remote  point  in 
the  west  of  China,  the  great  city  of  Chentu;  a 
city  so  far  removed  from  the  United  States  that 
when  it  is  noon  in  New  York,  it  is  within  eight 
minutes  of  midnight  there.  For  while  New 
York  is  seventy-four  degrees  west  from.  Green- 
wich, Chentu  is  one  hundred  and  four  degrees 
east,  so  that  one  hundred  and  seventy-eight  de- 
grees of  longitude  intervene;  nearly  one-half 
the  circuit  of  the  globe.  When  New  York  is 
booming  with  the  rush  and  clangor  of  noonday, 
in  Chentu  the  great  iron  gates  which  afford  en- 
trance and  exit  have  long  been  closed,  for  they 
are  locked  at  sunset;  the  wooden  barriers  which 
separate  one  section  of  the  city  from  another 
have  been  shut  for  two  hours,  and  the  only  signs 
of  life  are  the  night-watchmen  making  their 
rounds  with  flickering  Chinese  lantern  and  vi- 
brating gong. 

But  I  shall  not  ask  you  to  linger  there,  for  I 
wish  you  to  accompany  me  on  my   return   to 


IN  THE  PROVINCIAL  COLLEGE.  Sprague,  photo. 


10 

America  after  a  year's  residence  while  engaged 
in  giving  instruction  in  the  Chinese  government 
schools. 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  writer's  engagement, 
it  seemed  best  not  to  return  at  once  by  the 
quickest  means,  but  to  spend  a  couple  of  months 
in  further  touring  that  strange  country;  for  it 
is  indeed  a  strange  one. 

In  these  days  of  rapid  travel  and  easy  com- 
munication between  the  nations,  we  are  apt  to 
imagine  that  our  modern  methods  of  transpor- 
tation have  been  introduced,  to  some  extent  at 
least,  into  all  the  more  important  portions  of 
the  world.  We  read  of  railways  in  Korea,  rail- 
ways in  darkest  Africa,  of  another  projected 
from  the  Cape  to  Cairo.  But,  in  spite  of  all, 
there  still  remain  portions  of  the  earth's  sur- 
face, thickly  settled  and  with  an  ancient  civili- 
zation, to  which  our  modern  methods  of  trans- 
portation have  not  yet  penetrated.  It  is  in  such 
a  region,  located  far  in  the  west  of  China  and 
on  the  savage  borderland  of  Thibet,  that  Chen- 
tu  is  located;  Chentu,  the  capital  of  the  prov- 
ince of  Four  Streams  (Szechuen) — the  largest 
and  most  populous  of  the  eighteen  into  which 


A    STREAM    IN    CHENTU. 


Sprague,    photo. 


12 

China  is  divided.  A  province  whose  area  is 
larger  by  20,000  square  miles  than  that  of  Cal- 
ifornia, and  contains  a  population  of  sixty  mil- 
lions of  people,  yet  which  does  not  possess  a 
single  railway  nor,  outside  of  the  two  chief  cities, 
any  electric  lights  or  telephones.  It  is  true  that 
it  is  connected  with  the  outer  world  by  two 
lines  of  telegraph,  one  to  the  east  and  the  other 
to  the  south,  but  it  is  equally  true  that  wheeled 
vehicles,  except  the  wheelbarrow,  are  almost 
unknown.  The  safest,  easiest,  and  most  custo- 
mary method  of  travel  is  to  ride  in  a  sedan  chair 
carried  on  men's  shoulders.  Every  city  of  any 
importance  is  surrounded  by  an  immense  stone 
wall  faced  with  the  most  substantial  masonry; 
such  a  wall  as  Palmyra  might  have  possessed 
in  the  days  of  Aurelian.  And  yet,  after  all, 
that  country  is  far  more  advanced  as  regards 
modern  civilization  than  was  the  western  world 
one  hundred  years  ago. 

Were  you  to  unroll  the  map  of  China  and 
locate  the  city  of  Chentu,  you  would  find  it  near 
the  center  of  the  province  of  which  it  is  the 
capital,  and  apparently  far  from  Thibet.  As  a 
matter   of    fact,    the   great   Thibetan   highland 


13 


SOUTH   GATl', 


CHEXTU 


Sprague,    Photo. 


commences  forty  miles  northwest  of  the  city; 
but  on  the  maps  the  Chinese  have  extended  the 
provincial  boundary  out  into  what  is  truly 
Thibet,  so  as  to  include  all  that  portion  of  the 
latter  country  in  which  Chinese  officials  are  sta- 
tioned. The  entire  western  half  of  the  province 
is  in  Thibet,  for  it  is  made  up  of  immense  moun- 
tains inhabited  by  Thibetan  tribes  rather  than 


14 

Chinese.  The  eastern  half  of  the  province  is 
the  important  part,  where  the  great  bulk  of  the 
population  resides;  Chinese  living  in  walled 
cities. 

It  is  in  this  province  that  the  headwaters  of 
the  Yangtze,  the  great  river  of  China,  issue 
from  the  mountains  and  unite  to  form  the  main 
stream,  which  constitutes  a  natural  highway 
from  the  interior  to  the  eastern  provinces  and 
to  the  coast.  Two  noble  streams  sweep  past 
the  gates  of  Chentu,  converging  and  uniting 
near  the  southeast  angle  of  the  city.  As  a  con- 
sequence, it  is  customary  for  a  traveller  leaving 
that  city  for  abroad,  to  hire  a  native  boat,  float 
down  the  river  a  thousand  miles  through  its 
gorges  and  over  its  rapids,  issuing  from  between 
the  walls  of  the  last  great  gorge  into  the  broad 
and  easy  navigable  portion  of  the  river;  there 
to  continue  his  journey  by  steamer  for  another 
thousand  miles  to  Shanghai  and  the  sea.  Such 
would  have  been  the  writer's  course  had  time 
been  an  object.     But  that  was  not  the  case. 


15 


II 

THE  START 

When  an  American  travels  in  that  country, 
he  goes  prepared  to  cater  for  himself.  The 
writer's  first  care,  before  leaving  his  comfort- 
able quarters  at  the  Provincial  College,  was  to 
engage  a  servant  who  was  accustomed  to  cook 
for  foreigners  and  who  could  walk  long  dis- 
tances. In  a  place  like  Chentu,  one  of  the  prin- 
cipal centers  for  missionary  enterprise  in  China, 
this  was  easily  accomplished.  Then,  as  I  pro- 
posed to  travel  by  land,  a  sedan  chair  carried 
by  three  men  was  next  engaged ;  also  an  addi- 
tional man  to  carry  the  bedding  and  provisions 
which  are  packed  in  large  baskets.  On  the 
morning  of  departure,  I  took  my  seat  in  the 
chair,  the  poles  of  which  were  elevated  to  the 
men's  shoulders.  The  carrying  coolie  came  be- 
hind, the  servant  brought  up  the  rear,  and  so 
the  procession  moved  out.  As  soon  as  we  had 
passed  outside  the  city  gates,  a  halt  was  called 
at  the  first  eating-house  and  a  representative  of 


16 

the  firm  from  which  the  men  were  hired  paid 
them  some  advance  money.  The  men  at  once 
proceeded  to  spend  a  part  of  it  on  their  morn- 
ing meal,  for  it  would  be  strictly  against  all 
custom  and  precedent  for  them  not  to  start  on 
an  empty  stomach.  Their  first  meal  for  the 
day  is  always  eaten  after  they  have  travelled 
some  short  distance. 

Their  breakfast  finished,  they  request  you  to 
take  your  place  in  the  chair  once  more;  they 
pick  it  up  and  continue  on  the  way  for  about  an 
hour  when  they  stop  to  rest  for  a  few  minutes 
at  some  roadside  halting  place,  for  China 
abounds  with  such.  They  smoke  their  native 
tobacco,  and  quite  possibly  drink  tea.  For  the 
next  hour,  perhaps  you  prefer  to  walk  instead 
of  ride.  Indeed,  to  the  writer,  it  would  be  most 
acute  misery  to  sit  cramped  in  the  chair  all  day, 
nor  have  the  men  any  objection  to  carrying  it 
empty. 

In  this  fashion  we  journeyed  along  the  road, 
arriving  about  noon  at  a  walled  city.  Here  we 
entered  an  inn.  The  chair  was  set  down  in  the 
main  courtyard  while  the  baskets  were  carried 
into  the  inn's  best  room,  which  boasted  a  board 


17 


SEDAN    CHAIR. 


Sprague,    photo. 


floor  instead  of  the  hard-packed  clay  one  fre- 
quently finds.  The  provisions  were  unpacked, 
eggs  and  vegetables  were  purchased  if  needed, 
and  the  servant  proceeded  to  achieve  a  very 
creditable,  meal,  doubly  welcome  after  outdoor 
exercise.  All  inns  are  provided  with  furnaces 
for  cooking,  where  a  fire  is  kept  up  twelve 
hours    in    the    twenty-four.       Meanwhile,    the 


18 

coolies  were  eating  their  rice.  After  the  ser- 
vant had  washed  the  dishes  and  repacked  the 
basket,  we  started  again,  having  been  delayed 
perhaps  an  hour.  About  dusk  we  arrived  at 
another  walled  city  where  we  went  to  the  best 
inn  for  the  night.  The  noon  program  was  re- 
peated, except  that  after  supper,  the  bedding 
was  unpacked  and  arranged  on  a  bedstead.  In 
the  morning  we  started  once  more  on  an  empty 
stomach,  and,  after  travelling  for  an  hour  or  so, 
stopped  for  breakfast.  Such  is  the  method  of 
travel. 


Ill 

WESTERN  CHINA  SCENERY 

I  have  frequently  been  asked,  "What  is  there 
to  see  in  that  country?"  Sometimes  when  we 
think  of  those  far  eastern  lands  we  dream  of 
temples  and  palaces  of  gleaming  marble  glow- 
ing with  oriental  splendor,  or  shrines  loaded 
with  gems  and  heavy  with  gold.  Do  not  expect 
to  find  them  in  China.  India  has  the  former 
and  Russia  the  latter,  but  China  does  not  pos- 
sess them.  Nevertheless,  there  are  a  thousand 
other  features  which  make  up  for  their  ab- 
sence. So  long  as  one  is  out  in  the  country 
among  the  fields,  travelling  by  sedan  chair  in 
western  China  is  most  enjoyable.  Even  in  win- 
ter, the  country  presents  an  agreeable  appear- 
ance, while  in  summer  it  is  as  though  one  were 
journeying  through  a  most  delightful  park. 
The  richness  of  the  verdure  and  carefulness  of 
cultivation  must  be  seen  to  be  appreciated  or 
believed.  Here  will  be  broad,  bright-green 
stretches  of  rice  land,  the  little  dykes  by  which 
the  fields  are  divided  checkering  the  landscape 


20 

into  squares;  here  will  be  waving  bamboos  sur- 
rounding a  farmhouse;  here  will  be  a  group  of 
grave-mounds,  sheltered  by  tall,  funereal  pines. 
By  the  side  of  the  way,  possibly,  there  will  be 
brilliant,  aromatic  wild  flowers.  Here  will 
come  a  line  of  great  water-buffaloes,  and  the 
water-bufifalo  is  a  picturesque  animal  in  spite  of 
all  his  clumsiness.  Then,  as  you  begin  to  ap- 
proach some  walled  city,  you  will  pass  under 
a  succession  of  those  noble  memorial  arches 
which  the  Chinese  are  accustomed  to  erect  in 
honor  of  the  possessors  of  the  virtues  which  they 
love  to  commemorate.  The  road  leading  to  the 
north  gate  of  Chentu  has  been  termed  a  veri- 
table Appian  Way.  For  a  distance  of  four 
miles  from  the  city  it  is  paved  with  heavy  blocks 
of  sandstone,  and  is  in  perfect  repair,  spanned 
with  noble  arches  and  bordered  by  buildings 
which  become  more  and  more  numerous  as  you 
approach  the  gate,  until  it  has  all  the  semblance 
of  a  busy  city  street.  Finally  you  cross  a  stream 
one  hundred  yards  broad  by  a  massive  bridge, 
and  the  lofty  wall  of  the  city  towering  forty 
feet  in  the  air,  crowned  with  battlements  and 
surmounted  by  a  fort,  stands  before  you. 


21 


^Mfn_^-il^ ...  ■ 

|fl| 

ll 

■^4;;:.^, 

^^H 

^^^^1 

^h! 

1^1 

H^^^^^^HH 

^Kt  ^bh 

^t^^H 

i^^^^^H 

K  '^0 

Ikh 

■HHI 

K^^ 

hB 

A   FARM    HOUSE. 


Spraguc,   photo. 


The  farmhouses,  surrounded  by  hedges  of  the 
tall  graceful  bamboo  and  sheltered  by  shade 
trees,  constitute  one  of  the  most  picturesque  fea- 
tures of  the  Chentu  plain.  But  don't  try  to  ap- 
proach them  too  closely.  Never  did  the  saying, 
"Distance  lends  enchantment  to  the  view,"  ap- 
ply with  greater  force  than  in  the  case  of  Chi- 


22 

nese  farmhouses.  And  how  numerous  they  are! 
In  the  most  thickly  settled  districts,  the  write; 
has  estimated  that  the  distance  from  one  to  the 
next  is  not  more  than  two  hundred  yards.  This 
does  not  mean  that  they  are  ranged  along  the 
road  at  that  interval  with  ten  miles  of  open 
country  behind  each,  but  that,  if  we  took  one 
as  a  starting  point,  we  could  on  an  average 
find  six  others  each  two  hundred  yards  from  the 
first  and  with  intervals  of  two  hundred  yards 
between  them.  Of  course  this  statement  must 
not  be  taken  as  mathematically  precise;  never- 
theless, it  is  not  so  very  far  from  the  truth. 

This  description  of  the  country,  so  far,  ap- 
plies to  the  Chentu  plain,  nor  have  I  exhausted 
the  list  of  its  beauties.  Running  water,  which 
always  enhances  the  charms  of  a  landscape, 
abounds.  Here  we  find  one  of  the  grandest  ir- 
rigation systems  in  the  world.  We  read  in  the 
records  of  the  past  of  the  irrigated  plains  of 
Mesopotamia,  but  here  is  a  system  which  dates 
back  two  hundred  years  B.  C,  and  which  has 
been  preserved  and  extended  by  each  succeeding 
generation,  instead  of  being  destroyed.  In  sum- 
mer the  volume  of  water  issuing  from  the  moun- 


23 


ON  THE  CHENTU  PLAIN. 


Sprague,    Photo. 


tains  is  far  in  excess  of  all  needs,  and  the  whole 
plain  is  made  musical  by  the  tinkling  of  brooks, 
or  resounds  with  the  roaring  of  the  larger 
streams.  The  trees  which  the  Chinese  plant 
along  the  banks  of  the  irrigation  channels  to 


24 

preserve  them  are  in  full  leaf  and  contribute 
greatly  to  the  park-like  appearance  of  the  coun- 
try. All  that  romancers  have  written  or  poets 
have  sung  of  rural  beauty  seems  tame  in  com- 
parison with  the  reality  afforded  by  this  earthly 
paradise.  Of  course,  in  case  of  a  person  famil- 
iar with  the  more  highly  cultivated  portions  of 
England  or  France,  the  country  might  cause  no 
surprise,  but  to  a  traveller  from  the  western  part 
of  the  United  States  it  seems  nothing  less  than 
marvelous.  In  California,  the  land  lies  idle 
much  of  the  year,  and  in  the  early  autumn  as  the 
train  speeds  through  some  of  the  richest  sec- 
tions, all  signs  of  vegetation  seem  to  have  dis- 
appeared, and  the  only  life  one  sees  is  the  scut- 
tling forms  of  long-eared  jack-rabbits.  In  the 
Chentu  plain,  the  soil  is  never  idle  from  year's 
end  to  year's  end,  and  has  not  been  for  centuries 
and  centuries. 

But  that  plain  is  only  a  limited  area,  one  hun- 
dred miles  long  and  fifty  miles  broad.  In  most 
of  western  China,  where  it  is  not  mountainous, 
you  travel  up  hill  and  down  dale,  the  differ- 
ence of  elevation  between  hill  and  dale  amount- 
ing to  two  hundred  or  three  hundred  feet.     It 


25 


■^■.  ••'«  ^  *■--- 


RICE  FIELDS. 


Spraguc,   photo. 


has  always  seemed  to  the  writer  that  it  is  in  such 
a  district  that  one  can  most  fully  appreciate 
how  completely   the   earth's   surface   has   been 


26 


PAGODA   AT   LOY    KIANG. 


Sprague,    photo. 


transformed  by  the  hand  of  man,  in  order  that 
it  may  yield  its  richest  abundance.  The  hills 
consist  of  horizontal  layers  of  rock,  outcrop- 
ping here  and  there,  while  between  the  outcrop- 
ping edges  of  the  layers  are  easy  slopes.  These 
slopes  are  all  cultivated  and  planted  with  such 


27 

crops  as  peas,  beans,  and  sugar  cane,  while  the 
stream  cliannel  in  every  little  valley  or  ravine 
has  been  terraced  into  rice  fields.  Except  the 
rivers,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  stream  in  its 
natural  state.  For  hundreds  of  miles  you  may 
travel  through  such  country.  The  road  will 
possibly  wind  down  into  a  little  valley  and  as- 
cend the  hill  beyond,  only  to  come  out  on  the 
edge  of  a  high  blufif  overlooking  some  large 
stream,  a  tributary  of  the  Yangtze.  Imme- 
diately a  beautiful  river  view  is  unrolled  be- 
fore you,  for  the  branches  of  the  great  river 
of  China  flow  with  a  very  meandering  course 
and  gentle  current.  Boats  will  be  tracking  up 
stream  or  rowing  down,  and  the  songs  of  the 
rowers  will  float  to  your  ears.  The  summits 
of  the  river  bluffs,  as  well  as  the  lowlands 
within  the  meanders,  will  be  clothed  in  the  rich- 
est green.  The  gentlest  of  airs  will  scarcely  suf- 
fice to  fan  the  cheek,  for  western  China  is  re- 
markably free  from  harsh  winds.  The  whole 
scene  will  be  idyllic  in  its  charm. 


IV 

TRAVELLING  BY  RAFT 

Travelling  through  a  region  which  possessed 
many  of  the  above  features,  the  writer  jour- 
neyed southwest  at  the  rate  of  thirty  miles  a 
day  for  four  days,  until  he  arrived  at  a  city  lo- 
cated on  the  banks  of  the  river  Yah.  The  prin- 
cipal reason  for  visiting  this  section  of  the 
country  was  to  enjoy  the  descent  of  the  river 
by  bamboo  raft,  shooting  the  rapids  and  wind- 
ing through  its  picturesque  gorge  nearly  a  thou- 
sand feet  in  depth  and  very  narrow,  for  almost 
all  its  navigation  is  carried  on  by  these  primi- 
tive contrivances,  which  merit  a  brief  descrip- 
tion. They  are  made  of  long  hollow  bamboos, 
four  or  five  inches  in  diameter,  bound  side  by 
side  and  end  to  end — a  single  layer,  floating  half 
submerged.  The  forward  end  is  turned  up 
about  three  feet,  and  there  are  four  oars,  each 
supported  on  a  short  crutch.  The  length  of  the 
raft  may  vary  from  seventy  to  one  hundred  feet, 
while  its  breadth  will  be  about  eight  feet.     Ex- 


BIRD'S-EYE  VIEW  OF  YAH  JO 


Sprague,  photo. 


30 

tending  down  the  middle  and  nearly  the  full 
length  will  be  a  platform  about  three  feet  broad, 
raised  less  than  a  foot  above  the  bed  of  the 
raft.  On  this  the  freight  is  carried.  But  when 
a  traveller  engages  a  raft,  a  common  Chinese 
bedstead,  a  rough  wooden  afifair,  is  fastened  on 
the  platform,  and  filled  with  fresh  straw,  which 
is  then  covered  with  matting.  Strips  of  bamboo 
are  arched  over  it,  and  these  are  covered  with 
mats  which  will  shed  any  rain  that  may  fall. 
After  a  week's  delay  spent  in  visiting  the 
American  missionaries,  the  writer  embarked  on 
his  raft  one  dull,  chill  morning  and  slipped 
down  the  stream.  For  the  first  ten  miles  he 
was  accompanied  by  two  of  the  missionaries, 
for  the  Yah  is  not  only  noted  for  its  rafts  and 
rapids  but  also  for  its  duck  shooting.  They  had 
sent  their  servants  and  horses  ahead  to  meet 
them  at  an  appointed  spot,  and  when  we  reached 
it  the  raft  was  brought  to  the  bank  and  my  com- 
panions departed  carrying  fifteen  ducks  as  the 
result  of  their  marksmanship.  There  are  no 
game  laws  in  China,  and  the  missionaries  fre- 
quently resort  to  this  river  for  the  sport  it  af- 
fords.    There  are  always  plenty  of  birds,  for 


31 

they  are  never  molested  by  the  Chinese,  who  are 
favored  with  the  same  paternal  form  of  gov- 
ernment that  the  United  States  has  given  to  the 
Filipinos.  The  people  are  not  permitted  to 
own  firearms,  consequently  all  the  duck  shoot- 
ing is  done  by  foreigners. 

In  summer,  the  descent  of  the  Yah  from  the 
place  at  which  the  writer  embarked  to  the 
point  at  which  it  joins  the  river  Min,  of  which 
it  is  a  branch,  can  be  made  in  eight  hours,  for 
that  is  the  season  of  high  water,  and  the  current 
is  correspondingly  swift.  But  the  writer  travel- 
led in  January,  and  consequently  tw^o  full  days 
were  required.  The  first  day  the  river  was  a  suc- 
cession of  quiet  stretches,  where  the  raft  floated 
gently  along,  sometimes  urged  by  the  oars,  al- 
ternating with  roaring  rapids.  The  sound  will 
be  heard  for  some  time  before  the  rapids  are 
reached.  The  current  will  gradually  gain  in 
velocity,  and  finally  you  are  at  the  brink  and 
down  you  go,  "shooting  the  chutes"  in  most  ex- 
hilarating fashion.  It  is  from  below  that  a 
rapid  can  be  best  appreciated.  You  look  back 
and  see  the  water  coming  down  a  short  steep 
incline  of  very  perceptible  grade.     If  another 


32 

raft  is  following,  it  is  most  interesting  to  see 
it  approach  the  edge  of  the  incline  and  come 
sliding  down.  But  how  about  the  rafts  which 
are  being  towed  up  stream?  Is  it  possible  for 
them  to  be  hauled  by  main  strength  up  such 
places?  No,  indeed!  A  narrow  channel,  or 
several  such  in  some  cases,  is  cut  through  the 
shingle,  and  water  from  the  main  stream  turned 
into  it.  The  channel  leads  around  the  rapid 
and  is  just  deep  enough  (about  three  inches) 
to  float  a  raft  with  much  bumping  and  scraping. 
It  is  through  these  narrow  channels  that  the  rafts 
are  led  around  the  rapids.  When  approaching 
the  great  gorge  of  the  Yah,  we  took  advantage 
of  such  a  channel  to  avoid  a  portion  of  the 
stream  which  is  especially  difficult.  Although 
our  raft  only  drew  about  three  inches  of  water, 
the  pebbles  were  rattling  and  scraping  beneath 
us  the  whole  way. 

In  the  quiet  reaches  of  the  river,  one  may 
walk  about  one's  raft  dry-shod.  When  going 
through  a  rapid,  one  stands  on  the  central  plat- 
form, or,  if  it  is  especially  tempestuous,  sits  on 
the  bed  with  one's  feet  tailor-wise,  while  the 


TEMPLE   IN   KIATING. 


Sprague,    Photo. 


34 

water  spouts  up  between  the  bamboos  and  rolls 
in  from  either  side. 

We  reached  the  gorge  on  the  afternoon  of  the 
first  day.  While  the  immense  gorges  of  the 
Yangtze  are  far  more  celebrated  than  that  of 
the  river  Yah,  and  altogether  eclipse  it  as  re- 
gards size,  yet,  in  the  writer's  opinion,  the  latter 
is  much  more  picturesque,  for  its  walls  are  tap- 
estried and  garlanded  with  trailing  vines  and 
semi-tropical  plants,  which  soften  their  harsh- 
ness and  beautify  them  as  only  a  luxuriant  vege- 
tation can.  If  such  was  the  impression  received 
during  the  winter,  the  dry  season,  when  nature 
is  at  her  poorest,  how  delightful  must  be  the 
scene  in  summer  when  all  is  at  its  best! 

In  such  fashion,  we  drifted  down  the  stream, 
the  current  becoming  slower  and  the  scenery 
more  prosaic  the  further  we  went  until,  late  on 
the  second  evening,  we  drew  up  beneath  the 
walls  of  the  city  of  Kiating.  We  disembarked 
and  made  our  way  within  the  gate  to  a  large 
inn,  where  the  writer  remained  for  a  few  days. 


35 


MT.  OMET  AND  THE  GREAT  RUDDTTA 

During  the  delay,  the  writer  visited  the  base 
of  China's  sacred  mountain — Omei — which 
springs  abruptly  from  the  plain  one  day's  jour- 
ney west  of  the  city,  and  rears  its  noble  crest  ten 
thousand  feet  above  the  level  of  the  surrounding 
country.  As  it  was  winter,  no  attempt  was  made 
to  ascend.  The  following  account  of  the  moun- 
tain was  obtained  from  one  of  the  resident  mis- 
sionaries at  Kiating. 

"Mount  Omei — one  day's  journey  to  the  west 
of  the  city" — he  said,  "is  becoming  quite  a  for- 
eigners' summer  resort.  Some  sixty  mission- 
aries spent  a  portion  of  last  summer  there.  As  yet 
most  of  them  reside  in  rooms  in  some  of  the  in- 
numerable temples  that  dot  the  mountain.  A 
few  bungalows  have  been  built,  and  steps  are 
being  taken  for  several  more. 

"It  is  a  most  interesting  old  mountain.  Every 
year  come  thousands  of  pilgrims  to  worship 
there,  for  it  is  the  Buddhist's  Mecca  of  China. 


d>6 

In  the  winter  some  of  the  tribes-people  come, 
and  also  the  Thibetan  pilgrims.  The  trip  to  the 
highest  point  of  the  mountain — called  the 
Golden  Summit — is  of  interest  to  more  than 
the  religious  pilgrim.  More  beautiful  scenery 
it  would  be  hard  to  find.  And  when  one  ac- 
tually reaches  the  summit,  words  fail  one  to  de- 
scribe what — if  the  weather  be  favorable — is  re- 
vealed to  the  eye.  A  pair  of  Chinese  scrolls  an- 
nounce 'To  the  East  behold  a  sea  of  clouds,  to 
the  West  the  mountains  of  snow.'  And  these 
same  clouds — ever  moving,  tossing,  changing — 
present  a  panorama  apt  in  its  comparison  to  the 
rolling  sea.  But  sometimes  the  clouds  lift,  and 
then  a  sheer  clifif  drops  a  mile  or  more  to  the 
lower  hills,  and  beyond  that  stretches  the  swell- 
ing Omei  plain.  Kiatingfu  seems  right  at  our 
feet,  and  on  the  clearer  days  the  Chentu  plain 
beyond  is  clearly  visible. 

"The  snow  mountains  to  the  west  are  those  of 
Thibet.  There  is  a  whole  range  of  them  extend- 
ing several  hundred  miles  in  length.  One  noble 
peak  towers  above  all  the  others.  It  is  one  of 
the  world's  high  mountain  peaks,  being  about 
25,000  feet    above  the  sea.     What  the  pilgrims 


37 

long  most  to  see  is  Buddha's  Glory  and  the 
Spirit-lamps.  The  former  is  a  rainbow  circle 
which,  under  certain  atmospheric  conditions, 
appears  over  the  clifif.  The  latter  seem  to  be 
some  form  of  phosphorescent  lights  that,  on 
some  nights,  appear  in  great  numbers  on  the 
valley.  Most  travellers  who  have  visited  the 
Golden  Summit  have  agreed  that  it  is  one  of 
the  most  interesting  and  wonderful  places  in 
the    world." 

Another  of  the  sights  of  Kiating  is  the  ruin 
of  an  immense  image  of  Buddha.  Twelve 
hundred  years  ago  a  niche  two  or  three  hun- 
dred feet  high  was  cut  in  a  clifif  which 
stands  by  the  side  of  the  river.  The  recess  ex- 
tended the  full  height  of  the  clifif  and  in  it  was 
carved  an  immense  image.  Unprotected  from 
the  elements  and  neglected  by  the  people,  time 
has  done  its  work,  and  all  that  is  left  consists 
of  a  few  vestiges  of  the  face.  The  entire  niche 
is  overgrown  with  brush,  and  vegetation  hangs 
from  the  image  so  as  to  give  it  the  appear- 
ance of  possessing  eyebrows  and  mustache. 
Standing  on  the  opposite  bank  of  the  river,  you 
can  dimly  trace  the  outline  of  a  face;  that  is  all. 


38 

But  while  this  old  relic  is  a  disappointment, 
there  is  another  coUosal  image  of  Buddha  in 
west  China  which  is  preserved  in  all  its  glory, 
and  which  has  never  been  described  in  any  book 
in  the  English  language.  Baberj  the  English 
traveller,  mentions  having  heard  a  rumor  of  its 
existence.  He  was  told  that  a  hill  had  been 
hewn  into  a  seated  image  of  Buddha  "several 
hundred  feet  high,  which  far  overtops  the  roofs 
of  surrounding  temples." 

Inspired  by  the  ambition  to  locate  and  pho- 
tograph so  remarkable  a  piece  of  work,  the 
writer  journeyed  to  the  spot,  the  location  of 
which  he  was  able  to  surmis'e  after  some  adroit 
questioning.  How  much  time  was  required  to 
get  there,  and  what  the  distance  and  direction, 
will  not  be  divulged.  Great  difficulty  was  en- 
countered in  getting  men  to  carry,  and  most  of 
the  distance  had  to  be  walked,  but  finally  the 
spot  was  reached.  There  the  great  idol  was  in 
all  his  dignity;  not  nearly  so  large  as  rumor 
had  made  him  out,  but  a  Colossus  still.  The 
upper  half  of  the  hill-side  consists  of  a  sand- 
stone clifif,  and  in  this  a  niche  fifty  feet  broad 
has  been  cut,  leaving  a  central  core  of  stone. 


THE    GREAT    BUDDHA. 


Sprague,    Photo. 


40 

which  was  then  carved  into  a  figure  seated  in 
European  style,  not  cross-legged  as  Buddha  is 
so  often  represented.  The  writer  measured  the 
breadth  of  the  opening  and,  using  that  as  a  unit 
of  measurement  on  the  photograph,  the  height 
of  the  image  is  not  less  than  one  hundred  feet, 
that  of  the  hill  not  less  than  two  hundred.  As 
the  camera  was  pointing  upward  at  a  small 
angle,  the  vertical  measurements  must  be 
greater  than  the  figures  given. 

The  reader  will  observe  by  glancing  at  the 
picture  that  a  series  of  five  tiled  roofs,  descend- 
ing like  a  flight  of  steps,  have  been  built  before 
the  image  to  protect  it  from  the  weather,  so 
that  only  the  face  can  be  seen  from  without. 
But  by  going  within,  the  location  of  the  feet 
can  be  determined;  they  are  on  a  level  with  the 
space  between  the  two  lowest  roofs.  You  will 
also  see  a  white-fronted  structure  below  and  to 
the  right;  it  is  a  temple,  and  another  temple 
crowns  the  height.  As  the  writer  and  his  men 
came  in  sight  of  the  Great  Buddha,  we  halted 
and  rested  from  our  journey  at  a  point  near  one 
of  the  gates  to  the  walled  city  which  lies  in  the 
valley  below.     As  our  eyes  turned  to  the  great 


41 


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THE    GREAT    STONE    FACE.  Sprague,    photo. 

face,  which  has  been  gilded  until  it  shines  like 
metal;  as  the  immense  size  and  perfect  preser- 
vation of  the  idol  made  their  impression,  the 
thought  that  came  to  my  mind  was  "How  far 
more  marvelous  is  this  than  many  of  the  w^orld's 
boasted  wonders."  I  thought  of  the  Colossi  at 
Thebes    and    the    Sphinx.      What    are    they? 


42 

Scarred,  ruined  and  defaced  by  the  hand  of 
man  and  the  effects  of  time,  they  are  scarcely 
recognizable  as  images.  They  are  little  better 
than  lumps  of  battered  rock.  But  far  in  the 
west  of  China  sits  this  old  Buddha,  remote 
from  the  tracks  of  travel,  unnoticed  and  almost 
unknown;  yet  greater  in  size  than  the  Egyptian 
Colossi,  his  proportions  preserved  in  all  their 
pristine  freshness,  temples  above  and  below 
him,  and  priests  in  attendance  to  keep  the  in- 
cense burning  at  his  feet..  There  he  sits  gazing 
grimly  out  over  the  tiled  roofs  of  the  city 
which  lies  before  him. 

While  exploring  the  temple,  I  asked  one  of 
the  priests  the  age  of  the  image.  His  answer 
came,  "Gee  chien  nien.  Some  thousands  of 
years."    I  give  it  for  what  it  is  worth. 


43 


VI 
THE  LONELY  MISSION  STATION 

From  this  point  the  writer  journeyed  across 
country  to  the  Lu  Ho,  an  important  tributary  of 
the  Yangtze.  The  river  was  reached  at  a  place 
the  name  of  which  the  inhabitants  pronounce 
Zid-zo.  I  remember  well  the  night  of  my  ar- 
rival in  that  city.  The  festivities  attendant 
upon  the  New  Year  were  still  in  progress,  and 
the  principal  business  streets  were  hung  with 
hundreds  of  paper  lanterns  of  the  most  ex- 
traordinary designs.  Some  of  them  were  in  the 
shape  of  fish,  while  others  were  crude  repre- 
sentations of  birds  and  quadrupeds.  Here  let 
us  pause  for  a  moment,  while  I  try  to  portray 
by  a  few  touches  the  conditions  under  which 
missionaries  do  their  work. 

Far  in  the  interior  of  Asia,  more  than  a 
thousand  miles  from  the  sea  as  the  crow  flies, 
that  city  is  located.  It  lies  on  the  bank  of  a 
gently  flowing  river.  The  dull  gray  walls  of 
the  city  overlook  the  dull    gray  waters  of  the 


44 

stream,  while  overhead  hands  a  dull  gray  sky, 
since  the  province  of  Four  Streams  is  renowned 
throughout  all  China  as  the  land  of  clouds. 
Behind  the  city,  a  temple-crowned  height  rises 
three  hundred  feet  above  the  narrow  streets, 
from  which  a  winding  path  leads  to  the  sum- 
mit. On  its  other  sides,  the  summit  is  inacces- 
sible, for  a  cliff  drops  sheer  and  perpendicular. 
The  temple  is  a  place  of  pilgrimage  for  the 
Buddhists  of  western  China,  and  every  year 
they  come  there  in  thousands,  to  worship  at  the 
shrine  of  the  Bright-eyed  Goddess.  As  they 
wind  their  way  up  the  steep  slope  and  through 
the  low  mounds  of  the  cemetery  which  lies  on 
the  hill-side,  they  must  pass  the  foot  of  a  fan- 
tastic wooden  pagoda,  situated  about  half  way 
up  the  ascent.  It  is  right  at  the  base  of  the 
tower,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  burial  ground, 
that  the  residence  of  the  American  mission- 
aries is  located.  There  they  "live  and  move 
and  have  their  being."  From  there  they 
look  down  on  the  sea  of  gray  tiled  roofs  and 
thin  curling  columns  of  smoke,  lying  two 
hundred  feet  below.  From  there  they  de- 
scend to  hold  the  services  in  their  little  church 


THE    LONELY    MISSION    STATION.        Sprague,    photo. 


46 

tucked  away  in  a  crowded  corner  of  the  city, 
which  even  from  a  Chinese  point  of  view  is 
exceedingly  crowded.  A  bridge  over  a  shallow 
depression  connects  the  foot  of  the  hill  with 
one  of  the  city's  narrow  side-streets.  It  is 
probable  that  in  summer,  during  the  rainy  sea- 
son, a  stream  flows  under  the  bridge,  and  con- 
sequently a  custom  has  grown  up  of  throwing 
the  garbage  of  the  city  from  it.  In  winter,  the 
channel  is  dry,  but  the  custom  is  kept  up  not- 
withstanding. The  result  is  that  the  atmos- 
phere in  that  locality  can  neither  be  described 
nor  imagined.  And  when  the  bridge  has  been 
crossed  on  the  way  citywards,  conditions  are 
very  little  better,  for  the  way  lies  through  the 
nastiest,  the  filthiest,  the  vilest  smelling  street 
that  I  remember  having  found  in  all  that 
country. 

Such  are  the  surroundings  of  the  mission- 
aries. Their  home  is  a  low,  unpretentious 
structure  of  what  Conan  Doyle  would  call  the 
"wattle  and  daub"  type  of  architecture.  Yet  it 
is  neat  and  comfortable,  amply  adequate  for  the 
needs  of  one  family.  I  found  it  occupied  by  a 
young  couple  who  had  arrived  from  Chicago 


ENTRAX'CE  TO   GUILD   HALL,  ZID-ZO.  Sprague,  photo. 


48 


AT  A  CONFUCIAN  TEMPLE. 


Sprague,   photo. 


only  a  year  before.  They  were  still  in  the 
midst  of  their  study  of  the  language,  since  it  is 
necessary  for  a  missionary  to  devote  the  first 
two  years  of  residence  to  acquiring  the  ability 
to  converse  with  the  people.  With  the  help  of 
a  native  pastor  to  do  the  preaching,  they  were 
trying   to    accomplish    what   little    they    could. 


49 

Once  a  year,  they  travel  three  or  four  days' 
journey  to  the  north,  to  the  capital,  for  confer- 
ence. Once  a  year,  the  senior  missionary,  who 
supervises  their  district,  visits  them  for  a  few 
days.  The  rest  of  the  time,  months  may  pass 
without  their  seeing  a  white  face.  It  is  true 
that  the  city  lies  on  the  principal  highway  of 
western  China,  and  if  a  globe  trotter  visits  that 
portion  of  the  empire,  he  is  pretty  sure  to  pass 
that  way.  Such  a  one  may,  possibly,  linger  for 
a  day,  climb  the  hill,  and  enjoy  their  hospi- 
tality. A.  S.  Roe,  author  of  that  delightful 
volume,  ''China  As  I  Saw  It,"  was  entertained 
there.  But  such  visits  are  "short  and  far  be- 
tween." Most  of  the  time  those  two  young 
people  are  as  isolated  from  the  white  race  as 
though  they  were  in  the  wilds  of  Thibet. 

I  should  not  be  presenting  a  fair  picture  of 
travel  in  that  portion  of  the  empire,  if  I  had 
not  stopped  to  draw  this  sketch  of  the  mission 
station,  for  it  is  a  red-letter  day  in  the  itinerary 
of  the  traveller  when  he  reaches  one  of  these 
little  oases  of  western  civilization  set  down  in 
the  dirt  and  discomfort  of  China. 


50 


VII 
INTERESTING  SIGHTS 

I  next  wandered  southward  as  inclination 
prompted,  visiting  five  large  walled  cities  lo- 
cated on  or  near  the  banks  of  the  river.  What 
need  is  there  to  give  the  details  of  the  journey? 
Were  this  narrative  written  in  the  style  of  the 
Anabasis — "Thence  we  proceeded  so  many  par- 
asangs  and  arrived  at  such  and  such  a  place" — ■ 
it  would  prove  dull  reading  indeed.  There 
have  been  too  many  accounts  of  western  China 
in  that  style,  by  travellers  whose  only  object 
seemed  to  be  to  gallop  over  as  much  ground  in 
as  little  time  as  possible,  rather  than  to  learn 
something  of  the  country  and  present  an  ade- 
quate picture  of  it.  No  wonder  that  their  books 
have  not  found  favor  with  the  public.  Nor 
could  I  at  this  late  day  recount  the  details. 
Dim  memories  arise  of  days  spent  in  the  "up 
hill  and  down  dale"  country,  walking  along 
the  stone-paved  roads  or  carried  in  sedan  chair. 
Other  days  are  recalled  spent  lingering  in  some 


51 

walled  city,  exploring  its  temples,  photograph- 
ing its  monuments,  watching  and  studying  the 
complex  and  busy  life  of  its  inhabitants.  Be- 
fore my  mind's  eye  arise  lofty  pagodas,  richly 
sculptured  memorial  arches,  roomy  temples, 
and  great  stone  bridges.  It  has  not  been  the 
writer's  intention  to  give  the  impression  that 
all  the  features  worth  seeing  in  western  China 
are  due  to  the  natural  diversities  and  luxuriant 
vegetation  of  a  highly  cultivated  country.  West- 
ern China  has  its  architectural  monuments. 
Especially  fine  and  interesting  are  the  bridges. 
Marco  Polo  and  all  the  travellers  since  him 
have  dilated  upon  their  beautiful  and  substan- 
tial character,  claiming  them  superior  to  those 
found  in  almost  any  other  portion  of  the  em- 
pire. When  the  Venetian  visited  the  Chentu 
plain  six  hundred  years  ago,  he  wrote,  "For 
here  the  bridges  have  very  handsome  roofs, 
constructed  of  wood,  ornamented  with  paint- 
ings of  a  red  color,  and  covered  with  tiles." 
Many  a  time  has  the  writer  crossed  precisely 
such  a  structure.  Every  feature  was  there,  even 
to  the  paintings.  Of  course  they  were  not  the 
same  as  those  that  Marco  saw,  for  they  have 


MEMORIAL  ARCH  ERECTED  IN  1902      Sprague,  photo. 


53 

long  since  fallen  in  decay.  But  the  old  bridges 
have  been  rebuilt;  the  old  styles  have  been  kept 
up.  While  many  are  roofed,  many  are  not; 
there  is  a  great  variety  of  design;  the  surround- 
ings are  always  different,  and  consequently  the 


CARVING   ON   THE   ARCH.  Sprague,   photo. 

traveller  has  something  fresh  and  novel  to  see 
and  admire  in  each. 

But  it  was  the  memorial  -arches,  or  portals, 
which  span  the  highways,  that  particularly  fas- 
cinated the  writer.     Even  Japan,  that  land  of 


54 

art  and  beauty,  where  almost  every  feature  is 
a  delight  to  the  eye,  does  not  possess  them.  Yes, 
Japan  has  the  torii  but  what  are  they? — two 
logs  of  wood  driven  into  the  ground  and 
spanned  by  heavy  beams  of  slightly  curved 
shape  and  pointed  ends.  It  is  true  that  their 
very  simplicity  of  design  gives  them  a  touch  of 
the  artistic,  but  how  can  they  possibly  compare 
with  the  monuments  which  ornament  the  Chi- 
nese highways?  There  they  stand  with  their 
graceful  outlines,  massive  structure,  and  intri- 
cate carving.  While  it  is  true  that  many  are 
decaying  and  others  have  been  battered  to 
pieces  by  wind  and  weather  and  have  fallen  in 
fragments,  yet  new  and  handsome  specimens 
rise  to  take  the  place  of  those  which  fall  by  the 
wayside. 

And  then  there  are  the  pagodas,  sometimes 
two  hundred  feet  in  height,  built  in  the  most 
substantial  fashion,  of  great  smooth  bricks,  and 
usually  located  on  some  prominent  hill-top  by 
the  side  of  a  river;  always  down-stream  from 
the  city  whose  welfare  they  are  supposed  to 
guard,  so  that  the  water  may  not  waft  pros- 
perity away  from  the  community. 


More  curious  than  these  are  the  temples  with 
their  rows  of  great  grim  idols,  the  seated  fig- 
ures often  ten  feet  high.  All  that  the  writer 
had  ever  read  or  dreamed  of  such  things  was 
eclipsed  by  what  he  saw.  __- — 


It  would  be  the  greatest  mistake  to  imagine 
that  western  China  is  such  a  country  as  Korea 
was  prior  to  1882,  and  in  many  respects  still  is; 
the  people  sunk  in  degredation  and  misery; 
their  surroundings  scarcely  fit  for  animals.  The 
people  of  western  China  have  an  ancient  civil- 
ization of  their  own,  which  has  been  but  little 
affected  by  the  decay  which  has  come  upon  the 
eastern  provinces  under  the  Manchu  dynasty, 
and  from  which  they  are  now  trying  to  recover. 
While  it  is  true  that  the  villages  and  those  por- 
tions of  the  cities  outside  the  walls  are  usually 
squalor  itself,  yet  within  the  walls  you  see  much 
that  is  calculated  to  command  respect.  Streets 
solidly  paved  with  sandstone,  kept  fairly  clean 
and  in  good  repair;  aesthetically  arranged  and 
ornamented  shops,  with  carved  and  lacquered 
fronts;  large  and  attractive  stocks  of  merchan- 
dise of  many  sorts;  commodious  and  brilliantly 
decorated  guild  halls  for  the  merchants;  these 


56 

are  some  of  the  things  you  would  see  in  a  pros- 
perous commercial  center  such  as  Kiating.  It 
is  true  that  the  buildings  are  usually  low,  one- 
storey  structures,  but  such  is  not  always  the  case. 
In  a  city  called  Zid-zo,  the  writer  found  whole 
streets  of  two-storey  buildings.  This  was  on  ac- 
count of  the  location  of  the  town,  which  pre- 
cluded any  further  increase  in  area.  As  it  was 
impossible  to  expand  side-wise,  it  became  neces- 
sary to  expand  upwards. 


if 


57 


VIII 
A  CHINESE  INN 

The  reader  may  have  a  natural  curiosity  in 
regard  to  the  accommodations  for  travellers.  As 
it  was  in  this  part  of  the  trip  that  the  writer 
visited  an  inn  which  is  noted  as  being  the  best 
in  western  China,  it  may  be  profitable  to  give  a 
description  of  it,  for  many  travellers  have  men- 
tioned it,  but  have  refrained  in  a  tantalizing 
fashion  from  presenting  any  adequate  picture. 
Captain  Gill  and  Baber  lodged  there  forty 
years  ago  in  the  days  when  a  journey  to  Chentu 
was  looked  upon  as  a  journey  to  Lhassa,  the 
capital  of  Thibet,  is  now.  In  Archibald  Little's 
delightful  volume  "Mount  Omei  and  Beyond," 
he  describes  how  he  was  driven  out  of  Chung- 
king by  the  cholera  epidemic;  how  he  set  out 
to  spend  the  summer  on  Mt.  Omei,  and  for  the 
first  four  or  five  days  followed  the  Great  Road 
which  leads  to  Chentu;  how  at  the  city  of 
Loong  Chang  he  left  the  main  road,  diverging 
towards  the  west  to  visit  the  salt-wells  of  Zil-u- 


58 

gin,  and  he  describes  his  regret  at  leaving  the 
comforts  of  a  large  Chinese  inn  at  Loong  Chang 
to  encounter  the  dirt  and  discomfort  of  the 
small  stopping-places  at  which  he  was  forced 
to  take  shelter,  while  on  his  way  to  the  salt- 
wells.  It  was  the  writer's  fortune  to  put  up  at 
the  identical  inn  at  which  Mr.  Little  stopped, 
and  I  found  it  the  best  place  of  the  sort  in 
western  China,  with  the  exception,  of  course,  of 
the  new  inn  at  Chentu,  which  is  supposed  to  be 
in  foreign  style.  In  view  of  its  associations  and 
also  in  view  of  the  fact  that  its  features  are 
fairly  representative  of  the  better-class  inn  in 
that  country,  a  description  of  the  place  may  not 
be  uninteresting.  But  the  reader  must  remem- 
ber that  this  is  a  large  inn  doing  a  roaring 
trade  on  the  principal  highway  of  western 
China.  It  is  an  old  fashioned  Chinese  inn  at  its 
best. 

Sometimes  the  entrance  to  a  high  class  inn  is 
through  a  long,  narrow  passageway  barely  wide 
enough  to  allow  a  chair  to  pass,  but  in  the  case  of 
the  one  at  Loong  Chang  the  premises  are  wide 
open  to  the  street.  You  may  stand  outside  and 
command  a  full  view  of  the  establishment.   Sup- 


60 

pose  that  you  were  to  arrive  on  foot  and  were  to 
pause  on  the  threshhold  and  look  about  you, 
what  would  you  see?  At  the  very  entrance,  a 
green-grocer  has  established  his  stand.  In  addi- 
tion to  his  vegetables,  he  dispenses  eggs,  candles, 
straw  sandals,  pipe-lights  and  such  miscella- 
neous wares  as  the  cook  or  customers  may 
require  at  a  moment's  notice.  To  the  right 
and  left  of  the  entrance  are  a  drug  store  and  the 
innkeeper's  living  room  and  office  respectively. 
As  you  enter  the  inn,  you  would  pass  four  bar- 
bers, two  on  the  right  and  two  on  the  left,  who 
have  taken  their  places  at  the  entrance  and  all 
four  of  whom  are  quite  possibly  busy  with  cus- 
tomers. The  implements  of  their  trade  are  dis- 
tributed on  a  low  shelf.  After  passing  by  the 
barbers,  you  would  pass  the  hotel  office.  Here 
are  kept  the  cash,  the  lamps,  the  wine,  and,  the 
most  prominent  of  all,  the  quilts  which  are 
given  out  to  the  customers.  In  front  of  the 
office  are  a  few  tables  at  which  men  may  be 
seen  drinking  tea  or  perhaps  enjoying  a  full 
meal.  As  you  walked  along  you  would  see  that 
the  whole  place  is  solidly  and  evenly  paved 
with  heavy  slabs  of  sandstone,  about  four  or  five 


61 

feet  long,  six  inches   thick  and   nearly  a  foot 
wide. 

Continuing,  you  would  pass  a  short  space 
where  the  kitchen  is  located.  It  is  on  the  right, 
and  its  most  prominent  features  are  the  clay- 
built  furnace  where  coal  is  burned  and  cooking 
is  going  on,  and  the  great  troughs  of  stone  con- 
taining cold  water  brought  from  the  river. 
These  have  been  constructed  by  laboriously  hol- 
lowing out  great  solid  blocks  of  sandstone,  and 
are  sometimes  as  much  as  ten  feet  long.  Their 
depth  and  breadth  are  usually  two  feet  each. 
It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  the  sand- 
stone of  western  China  is  very  easily  worked. 
So  far  the  roof  has  been  lofty,  but  you  must 
next  pass  under  a  platform  about  ten  feet  high. 
On  the  left  is  the  living-room  of  the  druggist, 
and  outside  his  door  is  stacked  an  ordinary  pile 
of  medicinal  plants  to  be  used  later  in  com- 
pounding remedies.  To  this  pile,  the  druggist's 
white  and  yellow  cat  is  tethered  by  a  fathom  of 
cord.  The  cat  occasionally  utters  a  protest 
against  this  mild  form  of  confinement.  Oppo- 
site the  druggists's  quarters  is  displayed  the 
ancestral  tablet,  before  which  the  joss  sticks  are 


62 

usually  kept  burning.  As  you  walked  out  from 
beneath  the  platform,  you  would  come  into  the 
main  court-yard  of  the  inn.  This  is  a  space 
about  fifty  feet  long  and  is  wide  open  to  the  sky. 
The  rooms  for  the  commoner  class  of  guests  are 
located  on  either  hand.  To  the  right,  there  are 
four  above  and  four  below;  as  many  more  to 
the  left.  For  the  rooms  are  arranged  in  two 
storeys,  access  to  the  upper  rooms  being  afforded 
by  means  of  a  gallery.  This  gallery  is  on  the 
same  level  as  the  platform  before  mentioned. 
Standing  in  the  center  of  the  court-yard  and 
looking  back,  you  would  (if  familiar  with 
Chinese  institutions)  immediately  recognize  the 
platform  as  a  stage  for  play-acting,  and  it  is  to 
this  that  Archibald  Little  referred  when  he 
spoke  of  the  inn's  possessing  an  "elevated  stage 
after  the  fashion  of  the  old  English  inns."  The 
visitor  from  England  recognizes  as  familiar 
many  features  in  China  which  to  an  American 
seem  most  novel.  If  a  play  were  to  be  given  at 
the  inn,  the  gentry  would  be  seated  in  the  gal- 
lery, the  commoners  would  stand  in  the  court- 
yard below.  I  can  in  imagination  see  the  an- 
nouncement posted  that  a  play  is  to  be  given. 


63 

As  the  hour  approaches,  I  can  see  the  officials 
arriving  in  their  chairs  of  state,  accompanied 
by  their  wives  and  children.  They  take  their 
places  in  the  gallery  while  the  commoners 
crowd  the  open  court  below.  I  can  hear  the 
crash  of  barbaric  music  which  heralds  the  ad- 
vent of  the  play — the  wild  clangor  of  the  cym- 
bals, the  blasts  of  the  horns,  the  rapid  beating  of 
the  drums,  and  the  shrill  notes  of  the  Chinese 
fiddles.  The  actors  file  on  the  stage  in  their 
gorgeous  costumes  and  fantastic  head-dresses. 
The  play  commences. 

But  let  us  continue  our  journey  through  the 
inn.  Behind  the  main  court-yard  you  would 
find  a  lofty  open  structure  about  fifty  feet  broad 
and  twenty  feet  deep.  The  floor  is  open  and 
empty  and  it  is  here  that  the  sedan  chairs  of  the 
guests  and  visitors  are  expected  to  be  set  down. 
The  rear  wall  contains  three  openings.  The 
middle  one  is  square  and  is  closed  by  great 
black  doors,  on  which  is  drawn  in  gilt  lines 
a  huge  fantastic  animal.  The  openings  to  the 
right  and  left  are  circular,  but  a  few  feet  inside 
are  doors  of  the  ordinary  pattern.  These 
entrances  lead  to  the  "high  rooms"  which  are 


64 

occupied  by  officials,  foreigners,  or  merchants 
willing  to  meet  the  cost.  Within  each  of  these 
entrances  a  little  court-yard  is  located,  also  open 
to  the  sky,  and  behind  the  court-yards  come  the 
"high  rooms."  In  each  case  there  is  a  front  and 
a  back  room,  each  about  fifteen  feet  wide  by  ten 
feet  deep.  Behind  each  pair  of  rooms,  there  is 
a  last  little  court-yard  containing  a  tree.  This 
is  a  feature  very  characteristic  of  Chinese  inns 
— at  the  extreme  rear  of  the  premises  a  bit  of 
ornamental  vegetation. 

Were  you  to  traverse  this  inn  from  front  to 
rear,  the  probability  is  that  you  would  encoun- 
ter nothing  offensive  to  either  sight  or  smell,  so 
superior  is  it  to  the  majority.  There  is  a  slight 
layer  of  dirt  on  the  paving,  and  the  board  floors 
in  the  rooms  have  never  experienced  such  a 
thing  as  a  scrubbing.  They  are  swept  after 
the  departure  of  a  guest,  but  never  washed. 
Archibald  Little  mentions  that  the  roads  were 
muddy  at  the  time  of  his  visit,  and  the  incrusta- 
tion which  he  and  his  retinue  tracked  into  the 
rooms  is  still  there,  but  I  was  unable  to  trace 
his  footprints  because  they  have  been  obliter- 


65 

ated  by  the  super-incrustation  brought  in  since 
then. 

Life  at  such  a  place  is  quiet  enough  for  the 
most  part,  but  let  some  high  official  arrive  to 
lodge  there  for  the  night,  let  him  be  accom- 
panied by  his  family  and  a  numerous  retinue, 
and  at  once  a  scene  of  turmoil  and  confusion  en- 
sues. First,  the  Great  Man's  official  chair  is 
carried  in  by  its  four  bearers  and  set  down. 
The  Great  Man  steps  out.  His  chair  is  fol- 
lowed by  those  containing  his  w^ife  and  family, 
and  these  in  turn  by  those  containing  his  higher 
servants.  Next  come  the  frames  containing  the 
bulkier  baggage,  for  he  may  even  carry  with 
him  his  own  tables  and  chairs,  not  to  mention 
other  multitudinous  personal  effects.  Next  come 
the  baskets  carried  on  poles  and  containing  food, 
cooking  utensils  and  the  like.  All  these  chairs 
and  all  this  luggage  arrives  just  as  the  dusk  of 
the  evening  is  setting  in.  They  are  set  down 
amid  indescribable  shouting,  swearing  and 
jangling  more  appropriate  to  the  field  of  battle 
than  to  a  peaceable  inn.  The  Great  Man's 
guard  of  armed  retainers  possibly  find  the  inn 
more  fully  occupied  than  was  anticipated,  and 


66 

they  begin  to  have  their  doubts  as  to  whether 
they  shall  find  a  proper  place  to  sleep.  They 
raise  their  voices  in  inquiry  and  imprecation. 
The  head  servant  of  the  inn  is  summoned  to 
bring  his  keys  and  open  fresh  rooms.  Mean- 
while he  is  being  called  in  half  a  dozen  other 
directions.  He  loses  his  temper  with  the  rest. 
The  court-yard  is  blocked  with  chairs,  luggage, 
and  coolies.  Finally,  the  more  important  chairs 
are  carried  into  the  smaller  court-yards  and  are 
safely  set  on  tables  and  trestles.  The  luggage 
is  carried  within  the  rooms;  the  supper  for  the 
Great  Man  and  his  family  is  prepared  and 
served  in  their  apartments.  The  servants  and 
carrying-coolies  eat  at  the  tables  in  the  outer 
part  of  the  inn.    Quiet  at  last  settles  down. 

As  a  rule,  in  describing  Chinese  inns  to  trav- 
ellers recently  arrived  in  the  country,  it  is  cus- 
tomary to  speak  of  them  as  vermin-infested.  As 
a  sample  of  the  sort  of  thing  which  is  handed 
out  to  the  new  arrival  in  search  of  information, 
the  story  of  how  the  missionary  passes  the  night 
at  such  a  place  may  be  cited.  They  say  he 
takes  two  tables  and  places  them  together  side 
by  side  or  end  to  end,  it  doesn't  make  any  dif- 


67 

ference  which  because  they  are  square;  three 
feet  square.  He  next  spreads  an  oiled  sheet 
over  the  tables.  This  hangs  down  about  two 
feet  on  all  sides.  He  makes  his  bed  on  the 
oiled  sheet  and  lies  down  between  his  quilts. 
As  soon  'as  the  light  is  extinguished,  the  bugs 
come  crawling,  crawling,  crawling  from  all  the 
corners  of  the  room — big  bugs,  little  bugs, 
medium  sized  bugs.  They  reach  the  table, 
crawl  up  the  legs,  but  are  prevented  from  reach- 
ing the  missionary  by  the  gimlet-proof  oiled 
sheet.  After  breaking  a  few  teeth  trying 
to  bite  their  way  through,  they  turn  and 
crawl  down  the  inner  side  of  the  sheet 
with  the  intention  of  turning  and  climbing 
up  outside  until  they  come  at  the  mission- 
ary, when  they  will  have  him.  But  when 
they  reach  the  edge  of  the  sheet  it  is  neces- 
sary to  make  a  very  sharp  turn.  It  is  the 
making  of  this  sharp  turn  which  floors  them,  for 
they  cannot  get  around  it  without  falling  to  the 
floor.  There  they  lie  for  a  while,  kicking  the 
air.  By  and  by  they  get  on  their  feet  once  more 
and  make  a  fresh  start  up  the  table  legs,  but 
the  result  is  always  the  same.     The  sharp  turn 


68 

is  too  much  for  them.  So  the  program  goes  on. 
Meanwhile  the  missionary  calmly  reposes.  He 
sleeps  the  sleep  of  the  just  until  morning,  when 
he  arises  and  departs  rejoicing  on  his  way.  If 
you  inquire  as  to  the  size  of  the  insects,  you  will 
be  told,  "Big  as  grasshoppers  and  then  some 
more."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  plague  of  in- 
sects in  western  China  is  not  bad;  is  not  to  be 
compared  to  what  will  be  found  in  some  sec- 
tions of  the  United  States.  While  the  inns  are 
not  entirely  free  from  them,  the  evil  is  not  one- 
hundredth  part  of  what  might  be  expected. 

The  writer  occupied  one  of  the  official  suites 
three  days.  On  departing,  a  Mexican  dollar 
was  tendered  in  payment.  It  was  received  with 
a  gratified  grin. 


» 


y^' 


s^ 


69 


IX 
DOWN  THE  RIVER 


The  Yangtze  river  was  finally  reached  at  Lu 
Jo,  situated  where  the  Lu  Ho  and  Yangtze  com- 
bine, for  such  a  location  is  a  favorite  one  with 
Chinese  towns.  It  is  to  this  place  that  the 
writer  would  conduct  a  traveller  if  he  wished 
him  to  see  a  typical  Chinese  city  and  carry  away 
a  pleasing  impression.  Passage  was  taken  in  a 
rice-laden  junk,  and,  after  floating  a  hundred 
miles  down  the  river,  Chungking  was  reached. 
This  is  the  great  commercial  city  of  western 
China,  and  is  the  place  where  foreign  ideas 
have  been  most  fully  introduced.  The  writer 
found  many  of  the  merchants  living  in  resi- 
dences built  in  the  foreign  style,  but  far  hand- 
somer and  more  costly  than  any  which  the  for- 
eigners had  themselves  erected  in  that  country. 

And  now  before  we  leave  that  portion  of  the 
empire  and  resume  our  course  down  the 
Yangtze  to  the  sea,  I  wish  to  say  that  it  is  '*a 
good  land,  a  land  of  brooks  of  water,  of  foun- 


70 

tains  and  depths,  springing  forth  in  valleys  and 
hills;  a  land  of  wheat  and  barley,  and  vines  and 
fig  trees  and  pomegranates;  a  land  of  oil,  olives, 
and  honey;  a  land  wherein  you  shall  eat  bread 
without  scarceness,  you  shall  not  lack  anything 
in  it;  a  land  whose  rocks  are  coal  and  iron  and 
out  of  whose  hills  you  may  dig  copper."  Never- 
theless, I  should  not  recommend  any  one  to  go 
there  for  a  holiday  excursion.  That  is,  not  un- 
less his  interest  in  the  world  was  very  great,  and 
his  willingness  to  put  up  with  discomforts  equal 
to  it. 

The  next  point  to  be  reached  was  the  city  of 
Ichang,  five  hundred  miles  down  the  stream. 
Some  authorities  give  the  distance  as  four  hun- 
dred miles,  but  the  latter  figure  is  probably  too 
low.  A  steamer  had  recently  been  put  on  the 
upper  Yangtze.  This  vessel  was  a  powerful 
tug  with  a  tender  lashed  alongside.  Both  ves- 
sels were  fitted  to  carry  passengers,  and  both 
splendidly  equipped  to  battle  with  the  dangers 
of  the  great  river  of  China.  It  seemed  as 
though  this  would  be  the  best  means  of  trans- 
portation, but  the  vessel  would  not  leave 
immediately,    and    furthermore,    it    was    gen- 


71 

erally  predicted  by  both  residents  of  Chung- 
king and  naval  men  that  she  would  never  be 
able  to  get  down  to  Ichang  on  that  trip,  on  ac- 
count of  the  low  state  of  the  water.  The  river 
in  truth  was  low,  and  the  writer  decided  to 
travel  by  native  craft.  An  attempt  was  made  to 
hire  the  captain's  quarters  in  a  large  cargo  junk 
and  one  was  found  whose  captain  agreed  to  rent 
his  room  at  a  reasonable  figure,  but  with  char- 
acteristic Chinese  carelessness  he  put  his  papers 
through  the  custom-house  before  booking  his 
passenger.  In  order  for  him  to  arrange  the 
matter,  it  would  be  necessary  for  him  to  take 
out  a  fresh  set  of  papers  at  fresh  expense,  so  that 
chance  for  transportation  was  lost.  No  other 
large  cargo-junk  offering  at  once,  the  only  re- 
course was  to  hire  a  boat  of  one's  own,  and  a 
woopan  was  selected.  This  was  a  native  craft 
about  thirty  feet  long.  The  central  portion  had 
been  boarded  ofif  and  furnished  with  swinging 
doors.  It  had  been  arched  over  with  heavy 
Chinese  matting,  and  a  room  about  twelve  feet 
long  and  six  feet  wide  was  thus  provided.  The 
flooring  of  this  room  was  not  placed  on  the 
boat's  thwarts,  as  is  frequently  the  case,  but  was 


72 

placed  on  cleats  a  few  inches  above  the  bottom 
of  the  boat.  This  arrangement  permitted  a  per- 
son to  stand  erect  when  inside  and  still  have 
plenty  of  room  between  his  hat  and  the  roof. 

In  the  season  of  low  water  there  are  perhaps 
a  hundred  rapids,  large  and  small,  between 
Chungking  and  Ichang,  of  which  three  are  of 
the  first  magnitude.  As  the  month  was  March, 
the  river  was  at  its  lowest  and  wherever  a  rapid 
was  possible  we  found  one.  When  passing  these, 
our  boat  possessed  the  delightful  peculiarity  of 
swinging  a  complete  circle;  sometimes  the  circle 
would  only  be  described  once,  but  more  often 
two  or  three  times.  When  we  reached  the  first 
great  rapid  it  seemed  as  though  we  should  get 
through  without  this  experience.  But  no! 
When  almost  through,  our  boat  commenced  its 
customary  evolution.  A  heavy  cargo-junk, 
which  shortly  before  had  been  half  a  mile 
astern,  was  now  only  a  few  hundred  yards  dis- 
tant, and  as  we  swung  broadside  to  the  current, 
the  junk's  immense  bow-paddle  or  steering 
sweep,  which  projects  in  front,  pointed  at  us  in 
a  most  menacing  fashion.  Had  it  caught  us 
amidships,  we   should   have   been   sent   rolling 


73 

over  like  a  straw.  Fortunately  there  was  no  col- 
lision on  the  first  swing,  but  on  the  second  we 
touched  the  junk's  side.  Although,  we  only 
seemed  to  graze  it,  the  impact  was  sufficient  to 
smash  one  of  the  spars  lashed  alongside.  How- 
ever, no  other  damage  was  done. 

On  the  morning  of  the  next  day,  we  saw  the 
walls  of  the  first  of  the  Yangtze's  five  great 
gorges  rising  before  us,  one  immense  rock  tow- 
ering four  thousand  feet  above  the  river.  We 
approached  the  defile  and  soon  were  passing 
through  it.  In  such  a  place  the  structure  of  the 
earth's  crust  is  strikingly  shown,  the  great  layers 
of  rock  sloping  up  in  one  direction  as  you  enter 
and  in  the  opposite  as  you  leave,  while  in  the 
center  where  the  mountains  have  been  carved  to 
the  core  they  form  a  perfect  arch.  Landing 
from  the  boat,  the  writer  secured  a  photograph 
of  the  scene.  The  first,  or  Windbox,  gorge  is 
short,  but  below  it  comes  another  twenty  miles 
in  length — the  Wushan.  That  evening  the 
wind,  which  blew  up  stream  and  in  the  teeth  of 
boats  bound  down,  commenced  to  rise,  and  we 
were  compelled  by  its  force  to  make  an  early 
stop  when  the  dusk  came  on.     We  were  right 


JNK  SAILIXG  UP  THE  GORGES. 


Spragne,  p 


in  the  wildest  and  grandest  portion  of  the  Wu- 
shan  gorge,  and  all  next  day  we  lay  there  while 
the  wind  whistled  and  howled  and  drifted  sand 
into  the  boat,  until  the  rain  began  to  fall  and 
caked  the  sand  and  prevented  any  more  of  that. 
But  while  conditions  were  unfavorable  for 
travel  downwards,  they  were  glorious  for  traffic 
bound  up  stream,  and  all  day  long  we  were  see- 
ing junk  after  junk  rush  by,  frequently  under  a 
mere  rag  of  sail,  but  all  going  at  a  great  rate, 
the  foam  rolling  and  roaring  before  them. 

The  next  morning  we  were  able  to  proceed 
on  our  course,  and  so  we  continued  down  the 
river,  shooting  the  rapids  and  threading  the 
gorges,  until  one  afternoon  found  us  escaping 
from  the  last  great  gloomy  defile.  We  had 
been  nine  days  on  the  way. 

Ten  miles  more  to  Ichang!  So  they  called 
the  distance,  but  it  seemed  the  longest  ten  miles 
the  writer  ever  travelled,  and  darkness  had  come 
before  we  reached  the  landing.  A  modern 
Japanese  steamer,  brilliantly  illuminated  by 
electricity,  was  lying  in  the  stream.  We  tied 
up  near  the  custom's  jetty,  and  almost  within 
the  glare  of  the  vessel's  lights.     As  I  sank  to 


76 

sleep  that  night,  and  heard  the  steamer's  bell 
ringing  out  the  hour,  I  felt  myself  once  more 
in  touch  with  modern  civilization.  I  had  re- 
turned from  the  middle  ages  to  the  twentieth 
century. 


AMERICAN  HOSPITAL,  CHUNGKING.      Sprague,  ])hoto. 


// 


X 

LIES  TOLD  To  TRAVELLERvS 

A  week  was  spent  at  this  point,  the  time  af- 
fording opportunity  to  see  the  commencement 
which  the  Chinese  are  making  on  a  railway 
that  will  eventually  connect  the  rest  of  the 
country  with  the  western  provinces.  During 
this  delay  at  Ichang,  there  occurred  an  incident, 
slight  enough  in  itself,  yet  which  so  perfectly 
illustrates  a  kind  of  annoyance  to  which  a  per- 
son newly  arrived  in  China  may  be  subjected, 
that  I  am  tempted  to  give  it  in  detail.  It  is 
true  that  the  writer,  owing  to  his  familiarity 
with  the  language  and  customs  of  the  country, 
suffered  no  inconvenience,  but  that  was  not  the 
fault  of  the  person  who  tried  to  trick  him.  Be- 
fore telling  the  story,  it  is  necessary  to  make  a 
brief  explanation.  In  China  the  money  is  not 
coined  by  the  central  government  at  Peking, 
but  each  province  has  its  own  mint  and  its  own 
coinage.  On  passing  from  one  province  to  an- 
other, it  is  usually  necessary  to  exchange  the 


78 

silver  of  the  province  from  which  you  have 
come  for  that  of  the  province  into  which  you 
go.  The  money  changers  demand  a  certain  per- 
centage for  making  the  exchange.  But  when 
the  writer  arrived  at  Ichang,  he  found  that  at 
that  time  (April,  1910)  money  of  all  provinces 
was  accepted  there  at  its  face  value.  This  is  on 
account  of  the  central  position  of  the  town,  and 
the  number  of  traders  who  come  from  different 
parts  of  the  empire.  Dollars  of  any  province 
are  always  in  demand.  Furthermore,  the  writer 
inquired  at  a  steamship  office,  and  was  posi- 
tively informed  by  the  Chinese  clerk  that  his 
Chentu  dollars  would  be  accepted  in  payment 
for  a  ticket  to  Shanghai.  As  that  company  had 
no  steamer  departing  soon,  the  ticket  was  pur- 
chased at  another  office  for  the  first  steamer 
leaving,  and  was  paid  for  in  Chentu  dollars, 
which  were  gladly  received.  But  when  the  day 
of  departure  drew  near,  the  writer  still  had  one 
hundred  of  those  dollars  in  his  possession,  and 
he  offered  them  to  the  missionaries  in  return 
for  a  check  on  the  English  bank  at  Shanghai. 
In  order  to  make  this  transaction  clear,  it  is 
necessary  to  explain  another  custom.     In  most 


79 

of  the  large  centers  in  China  there  are  foreign- 
ers in  the  employ  of  the  government.  These 
men  are  paid  each  month  in  silver,  each  pack- 
age of  one  hundred  silver  dollars  weighing 
about  six  pounds.  The  missionaries  buy  this 
money,  paying  for  it  by  checks  on  the  English 
bank  at  Shanghai,  where  the  money  coming 
from  abroad  for  the  support  of  the  missions  is 
deposited.  The  government  employee  thus  gets 
rid  of  as  much  of  his  cumbersome  silver  as  he 
does  not  require  for  immediate  use,  and  mails 
the  check  to  his  bank  at  Shanghai,  together 
with  a  request  that  his  account  be  credited  with 
that  sum.  Of  course,  both  missionaries  and 
government  employees  might  deal  with  native 
banks,  and  in  some  places  they  do.  But  Chinese 
banks  are  regarded  as  an  uncertain  quantity. 
Foreigners  prefer  if  possible  to  use  the  great 
English  bank.  The  above  is  just  as  much  a 
custom  of  the  country  as  is  the  eating  of  rice. 
At  the  Ichang  missions,  Chentu  dollars  are 
usually  in  especial  demand  on  account  of  the 
parties  of  missionaries  which  are  being  sent  up 
the  river  from  time  to  time,  and  to  whom  those 
dollars  are  an  absolute  necessity.     Accordingly, 


80 

the  writer  knew  that  in  offering  the  dollars  to 
the  Ichang  missions  he  would  be  conferring  a 
favor  in  return  for  many  which  he  had  received 
at  other  places.  However,  it  happened  at  that 
particular  time  that  the  Ichang  missions  were 
stocked  up  with  dollars.  At  least,  that  was  the 
reason  they  gave  for  declining  the  silver.  But 
the  writer  suspects  that  missionary  bank  ac- 
counts are  not  bottomless,  and  that  the  real  rea- 
son was  that  they  did  not  wish  to  write  a  check 
when  there  might  not  be  sufficient  funds  on 
on  hand  to  meet  it.  Consequently  a  visit  was 
made  to  the  office  of  one  of  the  steamship  com- 
panies; in  fact,  the  very  office  where  the  in- 
formation had  first  been  received  that  Chentu 
dollars  would  be  accepted  at  their  face  value  in 
payment  for  transportation.  The  company's 
agent,  a  Scotchman,  was  in  charge  and  received 
the  writer  courteously  enough,  but  when  the 
dollars  were  offered  to  him  he  declined  them. 
Had  he  simply  said  that  he  did  not  need  them, 
no  exception  could  have  been  taken,  but  he  ad- 
vised that  the  dollars  be  carried  down  the  river 
to  the  bank  at  Hankow,  and,  following  the 
writer  to  the  door,  said: 


81 

"Really,  if  I  did  take  your  d(3liars,  I  don't 
see  how  I  could  use  them  in  the  business." 

This  from  the  representative  of  a  large  steam- 
ship and  commercial  firm,  carrying  on  a  regu- 
lar trade  with  the  very  province  from  which  the 
dollars  came!  The  above  remark  was  made 
almost  within  the  hearing  of  the  Chinese  clerk 
who  had  previously  given  out  the  information 
that  the  firm  regularly  received  Chentu  dollars 
in  payment  of  bills.  The  writer  listened  to  the 
remark  in  silence,  turned  on  his  heel,  anJ 
walked  to  another  office,  where  the  Chinese  ac- 
countant very  readily  accepted  the  silver,  giv- 
ing in  exchange  Shanghai  money  in  the  shape 
of  bank  notes  issued  by  the  Hongkong  and 
Shanghai  Banking  Corporation.  This  was  far 
better  than  if  he  had  written  a  check.  In  fact, 
it  was  equivalent  to  writing  a  check  and  cashing 
it  at  one  transaction. 

The  real  reason  why  that  Scotchman  made 
such  an  absurd  statement  was  that  he  belonged 
to  a  class  of  men  frequently  met  in  commer- 
cial circles  in  China,  whose  chief  delight  is 
to  befool  and  befuddle  the  new-comer.  He 
had  become  so  accustomed  to  handing  out  false 


82 

and  misleading  information  to  strangers  that  he 
could  not  resist  the  temptation  to  give  the  same 
sort  of  thing  even  to  one  who  had  arrived  from 
the  wrong  direction,  from  the  interior  instead 
of  from  abroad,  and  who  was  familiar  with  the 
language,  and  probably  knew  more  about  the 
customs  of  the  country  than  he  did.  But  imag- 
ine the  case  if  the  writer  had  been  a  new-comer, 
ignorant  of  the  language  and  customs!  Such 
information  coming  from  the  representative  of 
a  great  steamship  and  commercial  company 
would  have  been  accepted  as  reliable,  instead 
of  a  gross  fabrication.  The  dollars  would  have 
been  carried  on  to  Hankow  where  they  are  not 
wanted,  there  to  be  disposed  of  at  a  heavy  loss. 
I  have  related  this  whole  incident  at  consider- 
able length  in  order  to  make  clear  that  the 
Texas  liar,  with  his  yarns  for  the  tenderfoot,  is 
not  confined  to  any  particular  locality.  You 
meet  him  in  China,  too. 


83 


XI 
FROM  SHANGHAI  TO  SAX  FRANCISCO 

Shanghai  was  reached  in  due  season,  and  ten 
days  were  spent  in  the  great  modern  commer- 
cial city  which  foreign  enterprise  has  built  on 
the  shores  of  China.  Before  I  go  on,  I  must 
make  an  explanation  which  has  been  given  ten 
thousand  times  before  by  ten  thousand  travel- 
lers who  have  written  of  Shanghai.  That  city 
is  not  "on  the  sea"  as  its  name  claims,  nor  is  it 
situated  on  the  Yangtze  river,  although  you 
enter  the  mouth  of  that  stream  to  reach  it. 
Shanghai  is  on  the  Whangpoa,  a  branch  of  the 
Yangtze,  and  it  is  twelve  miles  from  the  city  to 
the  point  where  the  smaller  stream  joins  the 
great  river.  It  is  necessary  to  repeat  the  above 
statements  for  the  benefit  of  the  few  who  may 
see  them  for  the  first  time  and  for  those  who 
have  forgotten. 

Most  of  the  steamers  bound  for  Shanghai 
ascend  the  river  to  the  city  and  land  their 
passengers  directly  at  its  docks,  but  vessels  of 


84 

the  largest  size  do  not.  These  lie  just  without 
the  entrance  to  the  smaller  stream,  while  the 
passengers  and  their  effects  are  brought  to  them 
by  a  powerful  tug  or  tender.  The  steamer  in 
which  the  writer  was  to  travel  was  an  immense 
boat  of  21,000  tons  displacement,  twenty-two 
knots  speed,  entirely  constructed  in  Japan  and 
manned  too  by  the  Japanese,  except  for  the 
American  captain  and  purser  employed  as  a 
concession  to  the  travelling  public.  Accord- 
ingly, on  the  afternoon  of  departure  the  writer 
embarked  in  the  tender.  As  the  powerful  tug 
swirled  on  its  way  down  the  broad  reaches  of 
the  river,  we  passed  a  fleet  of  old-style  war- 
junks.  There  they  lay — a  long  line,  moored 
end  to  end,  with  their  clumsy  sails,  immense, 
overhanging  sterns,  and  old-fashioned  smooth- 
bore cannon  pointing  over  the  bulwarks.  As  I 
leaned  on  the  rail  and  watched  them,  I  thought 
to  myself  that  of  all  the  strange,  bizarre,  and 
antiquated  objects  which  I  had  seen  in  China, 
the  strangest  of  all  were  these.  The  most  curi- 
ous sight  I  saw  had  been  reserved  for  the  last. 

We    were    now    rapidly    approaching    our 
steamer  as  it  lay  bulking  large  on   the   river. 


ox   THE   BUXD   AT   SHAXGHAI. 


Sprague,    photo. 


86 

with  its  huge  yellow  funnels  and  ventilators,  its 
turbine  engines  and  its  triple  screws.  We  made 
fast  to  the  gangplank,  and,  as  soon  as  the  pas- 
sengers were  on  board,  one  of  the  seamen  seized 
a  lever  and  began  to  torture  the  steam-winch, 
which  in  response  spat,  hissed,  growled  and 
snarled,  and  presently  the  baggage  was  being 
hoisted  on  board  to  a  growling  and  snarling 
accompaniment  from  the  steam-winch. 

So  smoothly  did  the  engines  do  their  work, 
that  we  had  been  under  way  an  hour  before  we 
were  aware  of  it.  We  crossed  to  Nagasaki  for 
coal,  and  from  there  proceeded  to  Kobe,  which 
we  reached  one  evening  after  a  glorious  day  on 
the  Inland  Sea  under  ideal  weather  conditions. 
After  Kobe,  our  next  port  was  Yokohoma, 
where  we  lay  three  days,  the  time  permitting 
of  excursions  to  the  capital,  Tokio,  to  which 
Yokohoma  bears  the  same  relation  that  the 
Piraeus  did  to  Athens. 

Oh,  what  a  contrast  the  shops  of  the  two 
cities,  filled  with  their  beautiful  art  work — 
cloisonnee  and-  satsuma — afforded  to  those  of 
China!  The  writer  never  realized  until  he 
visited  Japan  what  exquisite  works  of  art  can 


87 

be  produced  from  bronze,  porcelain  and  enam- 
eled metal.  If  his  purse  had  equalled  his  in- 
clinations, he  would  have  loaded  the  ship  with 
vases,  bronzes  and  richly  carved  furniture. 

Soon  came  the  time  for  departure.  One  aft- 
ernoon we  slipped  out  from  the  harbor.  Once 
more  we  heard  the  muffled  thunder  of  the  triple 
screws  and  we  shaped  our  course  for  Honolulu. 
Would  that  some  thrilling  incidents  had  oc- 
curred on  that  voyage  in  order  that  I  might  re- 
count them!  It  would  greatly  enliven  this 
narrative  if  I  were  able  to  tell  how  "on  the  last 
day  before  we  reached  port,  the  barometer  be- 
gan to  fall,  the  clouds  began  to  gather,  and  be- 
fore noon  had  come  a  great  gale  was  sweeping 
over  the  ocean  with  irresistible  fury,  and  carry- 
ing us  along  towards  our  destination.  I  stood 
at  the  forward  end  of  the  topmost  deck  watch- 
ing the  vessel  cleave  a  way  through  the  billows. 
The  ship  balanced  itself  for  a  moment  on  the 
summit  of  a  gigantic  wave.  As  we  hung  there 
for  an  instant,  I  saw  a  Japanese  fishing-boat  in 
the  valley  beyond,  not  fifty  feet  to  the  right  of 
our  direct  course.  The  next  moment  the  great 
steamer    plunged    downward    and    smote    the 


88 

water  with  a  shock  which  flung  a  mighty  bow- 
wave.  As  that  creaming,  seething,  roaring 
wall  of  water  rolled  away  on  either  hand,  in 
the  twinkling  of  an  eye  it  had  descended  upon 
that  frail  fishing  craft.  In  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye  it  had  drowned  the  dying  yell  of  the  de- 
spairing Japanese;  it  overwhelmed  their  boat, 
and  carried  it  down,  down,  five  thousand  fath- 
oms down,  to  mingle  with  the  slime  and  ooze 
that  cover  the  bottom  of  the  sea  in  those  abys- 
mal depths."  But  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  I  am 
unable  to  furnish  any  such  incidents.  Like 
most  ocean  voyages,  ours  was  prosaic  rather  than 
poetic.  It  is  true  that  on  the  night  before 
reaching  Honolulu  we  came  near  running  down 
a  Japanese  fishing-boat,  but  the  weather  was 
calm  and  no  damage  was  done. 

The  next  morning  we  were  lying  outside  the 
harbor.  There  they  were  again — those  old,  fa- 
miliar sights  and  scenes;  the  bold  outlines  of 
Diamond  Head,  the  curving  beach  of  Waikiki, 
the  rusty  slope  of  Punch  Bowl,  and  the  glorious 
dark  green  of  higher  hills,  illuminated  by  a 
brilliant  tropical  sun,  while  great  white  masses 
of   the   trade-wind   clouds   overhung  them   and 


89 

rose  miles  in  the  air,  shifting  and  swaying, 
twining  themselves  into  first  one  and  then  an- 
other   configuration    of    dazzling,    pearl-white 

beauty. 

The  quarantine  inspection  was  long  and  rigid, 
for  we  carried  on  board  a  band  of  the  hated 
Russians — hated  because  previous  bands  had 
once  been  welcomed  to  their  shores  by  the  citi- 
zens of  the  Hawaiian  Isles,  and  had  been  fur- 
nished homes  and  employment  on  the  great 
sugar  estates,  only  to  prove  their  utter  undesir- 
ability  for  the  kind  of  work  expected  of  them. 
It  was  hoped  to  find  evidences  of  disease  which 
would  make  their  entry  difficult  or  impossible, 
but  none  such  were  found,  and  by  noon  we  were 
at  the  dock  and  ashore  for  a  half  day's  run  in 
Honolulu,  than  which  there  is  no  more  delight- 
ful place  of  residence  though  you  search  the 
wide  world  over.  The  writer  well  recalls  his 
year  and  a  half  of  residence  in  that  city.  Would 
that  it  had  continued  for  the  rest  of  his  days! 
But  regrets  are  vain,  and  after  a  glimpse  of  the 
valleys,  the  parks,  the  palm-lined  avenues,  the 
cool,  dim  halls  of  the  Aquarium,  and  a  thou- 
sand   other    delightful     features    which    will 


90 

readily  present  themselves  to  the  mind  of  any 
one  familiar  with  the  place,  we  were  once  again 
on  board  our  steamer,  and  the  next  morning 
witnessed  our  departure  for  San  Francisco. 

Six  days  more  at  sea.  Sometimes  we  sighted 
a  steamer  miles  away  on  the  horizon,  and  one 
morning  we  passed  another  at  close  range  bound 
in  the  same  direction  as  ourselves;  and  then  on 
the  final  morning  we  saw  before  us  Jthe  familiar 
outlines  of  the  Golden  Gate,  its  cliffs  rising 
from  out  the  great,  rolling,  majestic  sea  that  for 
thousands  of  years  had  been  breaking  on  those 
rocks.  We  entered  the  harbor  of  San  Fran- 
cisco and  presently  found  ourselves  surrounded 
by  all  the  complex  life  of  a  modern  sea-port. 
And  the  last  impression  which  I  received  from 
my  journey  was  that  this  is  the  real  land  of 
wonders;  wonders  which  have  become  so  fa- 
miliar that  we  are  apt  to  take  them  as  matters 
of  course. 

The  idea  which  came  to  the  writer  has  been 
brought  out  by  the  poet  Tennyson.  In  Locks- 
ley  Hall,  one  of  his  early  poems,  he  shows  what 
a  powerful  impression  had  been  made  upon  him 
as   a  young  man   by  the  marvelous  march  of 


91 

modern  scientific  invention  and  discovery  which 
was  then  commencing.  Perhaps  you  will  re- 
call the  passage  beginning: 

"Men,    my  brothers,    men    the    workers,    ever 

reaping  something  new: 
That  which  they  have  done  but  earnest  of  the 
things  that  they  shall  do." 

In  another  passage  the  poet  speaks  of  the  en- 
joyment he  found  in 

"this  march  of  mind, 
In  the  steamship,  in  the  railway,  in  the  thoughts 
that  shake  mankind." 

Again   he  called   upon   the   scientific   age   in 
which  he  lived  to 

"Rift  the  hills,   and   roll   the  waters,   flash   the 
lightnings,  weigh  the  Sun." 

But,  when  an  old  man,  he  wrote  "Locksley 
Hall  Sixty  Years  After."    There  he  says: 

"Half   the   marvels   of   my  morning,   triumphs 
over  time  and  space,    • 
Staled    by    frequence,    shrunk   by   usage,    into 
commonest  commonplace." 


92 


So  it  is  with  us.  "Familiarity  breeds  con- 
tempt," and  we  have  come  to  look  upon  the 
greatest  triumphs  of  mind  over  matter  as  the 
"commonest  commonplace."  The  wonders  of 
the  past  have  become  the  commonplaces  of  the 
present;  the  commonplaces  of  the  past  have 
become  the  objects  of  curiosity  of  to-day.  It  is 
necessary  to  reside  in  some  corner  of  the  world 
into  which  modern  science  has  not  yet  pene- 
trated, or  is  only  just  gaining  a  footing;  some 
country  where  the  conditions  of  former  centu- 
ries still  prevail,  in  order  to  realize  what  a 
wonderful  land  we  live  in. 

THE  END 


93 
RECENT  AND  RADICAL  CHANGES 

I  presume  that  the  North  China  Herald,  pub- 
lished weekly  at  Shanghai,  has  some  readers  in 
the  United  States.  It  is  certain  that  it  enjoys  a 
wide  circulation  among  the  English-speaking 
residents  of  China,  but  I  suppose  that  very  few 
casual  readers  of  the  North  China  Herald  of 
October  30,  1909,  noticed  in  an  obscure  corner 
among  the  news  items  from  Ichang,  a  city  a 
thousand  miles  up  the  Yangtze  river,  the  item: 

"Two  naval  officers  recently  arrived  for  the 
gunboats  in  western  China,  and  set  out  by  na- 
tive boat  for  their  destination.  They  returned 
to  Ichang  after  a  few  days,  having  been 
wrecked,  and  having  had  their  goods  consider- 
ably damaged  or  lost  altogether.  The  river  is 
falling,  but  a  strong  current  is  still  running  in 
places.  The  Shutung  came  into  port  a  week 
ago  and  has  not  yet  left  for  Chungking." 

I  happened  to  observe  it  six  months  later,  be- 
cause I  was  temporarily  stranded  in  California, 
and  I  was  reviving  memories  of  old  Chinese 
days  by  conning  a  file  of  Shanghai  papers.  That 
announcement,  in  its  few  simple  phrases,  speaks 


94 

volumes  to  one  who  can  understand  all  it  means, 
for  the  facts  referred  to  typify  the  old  order 
and  the  new, — the  old  order  which  is  passing 
away  in  China  and  the  new  which  is  arriving. 
It  is  along  that  line  that  I  wish  to  speak.  It  is 
of  changing  China  that  I  wish  to  write.  Dur- 
ing a  recent  residence  of  a  year  and  a  half  in 
that  country,  one  year  of  which  was  spent  as  an 
instructor  in  a  government  college  located  in 
one  of  the  most  remote  provinces,  the  writer 
came  into  contact  with  many  of  the  movements 
which  are  revolutionizing  affairs.  It  is  his  in- 
tention to  speak  of  some  concerning  which  he 
can  testify  from  personal  observation. 

When  that  correspondent  stated  that  the  new 
steamer  Shutung  had  arrived,  he  also  stated  that 
the  problem  of  rapid  transportation  on  the  up- 
per Yangtze  had  at  last  been  solved  after  many, 
many  years  of  wearisome  waiting,  and  solved 
by  the  Chinese  themselves.  Permit  me  to 
briefly  outline  the  old  conditions  of  travel  on 
the  river  and  the  work  which  was  done  in  at- 
tempting to  improve  them,  for  the  whole  story 
illustrates  the  changes  which  are  coming  over 
China. 


PAGODA  AT  DAY  YAXG. 


Knipe,   plioto. 


96 

When  a  traveller  arrived  in  Shanghai,  bound 
for  what  is  still  considered  by  many  foreign 
residents  of  that  city  a  wild,  inaccessible  and 
dangerous  terra  incognita,  namely  western 
China,  he  found  that  the  journey  was  easy 
enough  for  a  thousand  miles  of  the  way.  Every 
day  a  steamer  leaves  for  Hankow,  six  hundred 
miles  up  the  Yangtze  river,  and  for  the  next 
four  hundred  miles  to  Ichang  steam  navigation 
is  reasonably  regular  and  dependable.  He 
found  that  the  vessels  navigating  the  river  were 
of  a  very  superior  class,  possessing,  according 
to  the  announcements  of  their  sometimes  too 
optimistic  agents,  "all  the  conveniences  of  a 
first-class  mail-steamer."  He  found  the  river 
flowing  with  a  moderate  current  beneath  low 
banks,  which  it  overflowed  at  times  of  very 
high  water.  If  the  river  was  in  flood,  its  navi- 
gation much  resembled  that  of  some  great  lake; 
but  if  it  was  at  a  moderate  stage,  the  steamer 
plowed  along  as  close  as  possible  to  the  bank  in 
order  to  avoid  the  strong  current,  and  the  trav- 
eller seated  on  the  upper  deck  beheld  the  fea- 
tures of  the  country  and  the  daily  life  of  its  in- 
habitants unrolled  before  him  like  a  great  series 


97 

of  moving  pictures.  While  he  enjoyed  the  com- 
forts and  luxuries  of  modern  civilization,  he 
beheld  the  squalor  and  wretchedness  of  China. 
He  saw  everything,  but  came  in  contact  with 
nothing.  But  w^hen  he  arrived  at  Ichang,  he 
found  he  must  face  a  very  different  set  of  condi- 
tions before  he  could  reach  Chungking,  the 
great  port  of  western  China,  located  on  the 
banks  of  the  river,  five  hundred  miles  beyond. 
At  Ichang  the  mountains  begin,  and  ten  miles 
beyond  that  city  the  river  issues  from  the  first 
of  the  immense  gorges  by  which  it  bursts  its 
way  through  the  rugged  barrier  that  separates 
the  central  portion  of  the  empire  from  the  west- 
ern. For  the  next  tw^o  hundred  miles,  it  either 
courses  through  profound  gorges,  or  hurls  itself 
over  tempestuous  rapids.  Happily  the  latter 
come  between  the  former;  were  they  to  coin- 
cide, the  navigation  of  the  river  would  be  a 
physical  impossibility.  As  it  is,  the  junks  by 
hugging  the  bank  can  be  dragged  past  the  rap- 
ids, although  in  some  places  as  many  as  two 
hundred  men  will  be  required  in  addition  to 
the  crew.  A  large  junk  will  carry  as  many  as 
seventy  men,  of  whom  between  forty  and  fifty 


A   TE.AIPLE    NEAR    CHEXTU.  Sprague.    photo. 


99 

will  be  trackers  walking  and  clambering  along 
the  bank,  dragging  the  clumsy  vessel  up  stream 
by  the  bamboo  towing  line.  The  remainder 
will  be  needed  to  keep  the  tracking  line  clear 
from  the  rocks,  to  man  the  small  boat  which 
serves  as  a  tender,  and  to  work  on  board  the 
junk,  manipulating  the  sail  and  the  immense 
bow-paddle  or  steering  sweep  which  projects 
in  front  and  by  which  the  boat  is  turned  when 
its  rudder  will  not  suffice. 

If  the  wind  is  strong,  the  boats  are  frequently 
greatly  favored  by  it,  for  it  usually  blows  up 
stream,  following  the  windings  faithfully.  This 
is  so  much  the  case  and  is  so  strongly  counted  on 
that  when  a  junk  is  bound  down  stream,  the 
mast  is  unstepped  and  lashed  alongside,  nor  is 
it  raised  again  until  the  junk  has  once  more 
been  engaged  to  ascend  the  river.  But  even  when 
the  wind  is  most  favorable,  when  the  trackers 
can  be  taken  on  board  and  the  great  sail  does 
all  the  work,  progress  is  still  halting  and  slow, 
for  after  some  glorious  dash  before  the  breeze, 
the  boat  must  lie  all  day  or  two  days  in  line  at 
the  foot  of  some  rapid,  waiting  its  turn  to  haul 
past. 


100 

The  first  hundred  and  fifty  miles  of  the  jour- 
ney are  so  much  more  difficult  than  the  re- 
mainder that  they  are  reckoned  half  the  voyage, 
but  one  of  the  fiercest  rapids  still  remains  to  be 
encountered,  and  the  whole  progress  to  Chung- 
king is  a  continual  struggle. 

At  Ichang,  the  traveller,  who  perhaps  during 
the  entire  voyage  from  Shanghai  had  never 
once  descended  from  the  upper  deck  of  the 
steamer  to  mingle  with  the  common  class  of 
Chinese  passengers  on  the  lower  deck,  must 
leave  his  luxurious  quarters  and  take  passage  in 
a  house-boat,  a  native  craft  sixty  or  seventy  feet 
long  with  the  forward  half  of  its  deck  uncov- 
ered and  occupied  by  the  men  numbering  forty 
or  more;  the  after  half  covered  by  the  house  in 
which  the  passengers  and  junk-master  live.  The 
writer  well  remembers  the  wearisome  experi- 
ence of  himself  and  his  companions  in  over- 
coming those  five  hundred  miles,  for  the  wind 
helped  us  not  at  all.  Day  after  day  we  lay  in 
our  boat  while  our  trackers  were  toiling  through 
the  gorges  and  past  the  rapids  of  the  Yangtze, 
dragging  us  nearer  and  nearer  to  our  destina- 
tion.     Week    after   week   passed   by,    nearly    a 


101 

month  had  gone  when  finally  the  tiled  roofs 
and  lofty  pagodas  of  Chungking  rose  before  us, 
and  that  stage  of  the  journey  was  done. 

Ours  was  not  an  experience  which  involved 
any  particular  hardship,  but  others  have  not 
been  so  fortunate.  An  extreme  case  was  that  of 
a  young  missionary  who  came  out  from  the 
United  States  with  his  wife  and  baby  girl  some 
years  ago.  They  embarked  in  a  house-boat. 
Not  half  the  distance  had  been  covered  when 
the  child  fell  ill.  In  a  few  more  days  it  was 
dead.  About  this  time  the  husband  and  father 
was  stricken  down  with  typhoid  fever,and  it 
became  necessary  to  bind  him  to  the  deck  to 
prevent  him  from  throwing  himself  overboard 
in  his  delirium.  The  deck  of  a  house-boat  is 
not  like  that  of  a  ship,  but  is  made  up  of  small 
squares  or  sections  which  are  laid  loosely  on  the 
deck  beams.  These  sections  are  of  such  a  size 
that  they  can  be  easily  picked  up  and  set  to  one 
side  by  hand  when  the  boat  is  being  loaded  or 
unloaded.  The  fever-stricken  man's  hands  and 
feet  were  separately  fastened  each  to  one  of 
these  sections,  and  when  the  delirium  seized 
him,  he  would  raise  the  squares  alternately  with 


\.    k 


'Ti!,  'Mr^£iA'\ffi  f^f  "^fr- 


BRIDGE   IN  TME  THAfPLE  GROUNDS.    Sprague,  pliotc 


103 

a  wild  clattering,  while  his  cries  rang  through 
the  boat,  floated  over  the  water,  and  were 
echoed  back  from  the  great  cliffs  rising  in 
gloomy  grandeur  by  the  side  of  the  river. 
Meanwhile  the  junk  was  being  hauled  through 
the  rapids,  sometimes  careening  as  though 
it  would  certainly  capsize,  while  the  drum 
by  which  the  trackers  are  signalled  to  pull 
harder  was  being  beaten  with  maddening 
intensity,  the  men  managing  the  huge  bow- 
sweep  were  chorusing  a  wild  chant  as  they 
tried  to  keep  the  boat  in  the  channel,  and  the 
waters  were  roaring  and  dashing  over  a  row  of 
jagged  rocks  which  partly  rose  above  the  sur- 
face not  a  biscuit's  toss  away.  Imagine  the 
situation  of  the  wife.  There  was  the  baby  in 
its  cofiin,  which  must  be  guarded  from  the  rats 
night  and  day.  There  was  the  husband,  pros- 
trate and  helpless.  There  was  the  fore  part  of 
the  boat  packed  with  Chinese  coolies  of  the 
lowest  and  roughest  class,  boatmen  and  trackers, 
swarming  on  board  at  meal-time  or  at  night  to 
sleep  while  the  boat  was  tied  to  the  bank.  With 
her  child  dead,  her  husband  delirious,  and  sur- 
rounded by  a  wild  band  of  howling  heathen,  she 


104 

finally  reached  Chungking.  And  yet,  although  a 
frail,  delicate  girl,  accustomed  all  her  life  to 
the  luxuries  and  refinement  which  our  modern 
civilization  usually  throws  around  the  daugh- 
ters of  the  wxU-to-do,  she  suffered  no  injury 
whatever  from  her  frightful  experience,  and 
reached  her  destination  with  health  and  strength 
unimpaired. 

Medical  attendance  was  immediately  avail- 
able for  the  missionary,  and  he  was  speedily  put 
upon  his  feet.  After  a  short  delay,  he  was  able 
to  walk  most  of  the  way  from  Chungking  to 
Chentu,  his  destination,  for  they  resolved  to 
complete  their  journey  by  land.  They  had  had 
enough  of  river  travel. 

Such  was  and  still  is  the  nature  of  the  river. 
Such  was  and  still  is  the  nature  of  the  native 
navigation — clumsy,  square-ended  junks  towed 
by  gangs  of  coolies  walking  along  the  bank  or 
clambering  over  the  great  boulders  which  plen- 
tifully bestrew  it. 

For  twenty  years  attempts  have  been  made  to 
interest  foreign  capital  in  putting  a  steamer  on 
the  run.  Once  an  English  side-wheeler  was  put 
on,  but  was  purchased  by  the  British  navy  for 


105 

a  gunboat  after  its  first  trip.  Again,  a  German 
steamer  was  started,  but  was  l(3St  the  first  day 
out  from  Ichang.  Finally,  in  1909,  a  steamer 
which  had  been  ordered  in  England  by  a  Chi- 
nese company  was  brought  out  in  sections  and 
put  together  at  Shanghai.  This  was  the  Shu- 
tung  previously  referred  to — a  powerful  tug 
with  a  tender  to  carry  passengers.  The  tender 
could  be  towed,  but  was  usually  lashed  along- 
side. In  the  spring  of  1910,  when  the  writer  ar- 
rived at  Chungking,  homeward  bound  to  the 
United  States,  he  found  the  Shutung  about  to 
commence  regular  runs  on  the  five  hundred 
mile  stretch.  Two  or  three  days  are  taken  for 
the  run  down,  and  six  for  the  upward  run.  If 
it  were  possible  to  travel  by  night,  much  less 
time  would  be  needed,  but  that  is  out  of  the 
question  on  account  of  the  innumerable  dangers 
from  rocks  and  rapids.  It  is  true  that  on  the 
thirteenth  trip — unlucky  number — a  rock  was 
bumped  and  it  became  necessary  to  land  the  pas- 
sengers when  only  forty  miles  of  the  journey  re- 
mained to  be  accomplished.  However,  the 
damage  was  comparatively  slight  and  soon  re- 
paired.   With  this  exception,  the  vessel  has  been 


106 

flying  back  and  forth  as  smoothly  as  the  shuttle 
of  a  sewing  machine. 

The  writer  described  the  journey  under  the 
old  conditions  at  such  length  in  order  to  make 
clear  the  immense  difference  between  travel  by 
junk  and  travel  by  steamer;  in  order  to  show 
what  a  saving  of  time,  trouble  and  money  is 
afforded  by  the  presence  of  the  Shutung  on  the 
river.  And  remember,  this  change  has  been 
brought  about  by  a  Chinese  firm,  and  not  by 
one  of  the  foreign  transportation  companies 
long  established  on  the  lower  Yangtze. 

The  above  instance  is  a  mere  straw  to  show 
which  way  the  wind  blows.  If  the  writer  had 
nothing  weightier  to  relate,  he  might  as  well 
keep  silent  altogether.  Another  instance  which 
I  sort  out  from  the  numerous  ones  that  illus- 
trate recent  and  radical  changes  is  that  with  re- 
spect to  beggary.  Until  lately,  mendicancy 
abounded  in  western  China,  and  especially  were 
the  beggars  of  Chentu  famous.  The  stories 
which  have  been  told  about  them  are  legion. 
When  Archibald  Little,  the  English  merchant 
and  explorer,  first  visited  the  city,  he  wrote 
back  that  "Chentu  was  a  vast  collection  of  alleys 


107 

where  all  the  dirt  and  beggary  of  western  China 
seemed  to  have  reached  their  climax."  John- 
ston,who  travelled  "From  Peking  to  Mandalay" 
in  1906,  said  that  he  never  encountered  so  many 
beggars  as  at  Chentu,  and  it  was  about  this  time 
that  one  of  the  oldest  missionaries  in  that  portion 
of  the  empire,  long  resident  in  the  above  city, 
commenced  a  series  of  articles  for  publication 
descriptive  of  the  20,000  beggars  of  Chentu. 
He  took  them  up  in  detail,  describing  their 
crowds  as  they  thronged  the  streets,  their  dirt, 
their  rags,  their  wretchedness,  their  beggars' 
guild,  their  beggar  king,  and  the  beggars' 
bridge  outside  the  city's  east  gate  where  their 
chief  might  frequently  be  seen  levying  toll 
upon  his  beggar  subjects  as  they  crossed.  The 
reverend  gentleman  dwelt  upon  the  perfection 
of  their  organization  which  made  it  impossible 
for  a  merchant  to  refuse  their  demands  abso- 
lutely; should  he  decline  to  contribute,  immedi- 
ately a  drove  of  tatterdemalions  would  be 
marched  to  the  spot  by  the  beggars'  guild. 
They  would  besiege  his  place,  block  all  en- 
trance, and  load  the  air  with  their  cries  for  cash 


TliE   'J'E.MPLK    S'iWikS. 


Sprague.    photo. 


109 

until  he  must  needs  accede  to  their  demands  or 
retire  from  all  business. 

The  reverend  gentleman  entrusted  this 
series  of  articles  to  a  monthly  journal  published 
by  the  missionaries  at  a  small  printing  office, 
the  machinery  for  which  had  somehow  drifted 
out  to  that  remote  corner  of  the  world.  They 
appeared  in  print  in  due  season.  Meanwhile, 
he  departed  for  England  on  his  furlough,  for 
every  seven  years  a  missionary  may  return  to 
England,  Canada,  or  wherever  his  home  may  be 
in  order  to  greet  his  friends  once  more  and 
come  in  touch  with  the  western  world.  A  year 
later  he  was  again  at  his  post  in  Chentu,  when 
lo!  he  found  the  beggars  gone  and  the  whole 
system  of  beggary  swept  away.  The  beggars' 
guild,  the  beggar  king,  the  beggar  persecutions 
were  all  things  of  the  past,  and  it  became  neces- 
sary for  the  reverend  gentleman  to  set  to  work 
with  his  pen  and  prepare  a  fresh  series  of  ar- 
ticles describing  the  new  conditions  and  how 
they  had  been  brought  about. 

And  how  had  it  been  acomplished?  By  driv- 
ing the  beggars  out  of  town  to  wander  up  and 
down  the   railway  track,  or  rather  the  public 


110 

highway,  for  of  railways  western  China  has 
none?  No,  and  again  no!  The  method  was  to 
establish  public  institutions,  call  them  work- 
houses if  you  will,  into  which  the  beggars  were 
gathered  and  where  they  were  taught  to  be  self- 
supporting.  Those  who  proved  promising  were 
sent  out  into  such  regular  employment  as  could 
be  found  for  them.  Those  who  were  worthless 
were  kept  in  the  institutions,  where  they  were 
given  sufficient  work  to  keep  them  and  from 
which  they  were  sent  out  to  certain  employ- 
ments for  which  they  were  in  demand.  The 
question  might  arise  here,  "For  what  employ- 
ment is  a  worthless  beggar  in  demand?"  That 
which  the  writer  has  particularly  in  mind  is — 
marching  in  funeral  processions.  When  a  Chi- 
nese of  means  or  position  is  buried,  a  great 
crowd  is  necessary  to  escort  his  coffin  on  its  way, 
and  for  this  the  members  of  the  Beggars'  In- 
stitute are  particularly  suitable.  The  writer  has 
frequently  stood  by  the  side  of  the  way  and  seen 
them  march  past,  behind,  or  rather  before,  a 
coffin  (for  it  comes  last),  each  man  decently  at- 
tired  and  wearing   a   small   straw   hat  on   the 


Ill 

band  of  which  were  the  characters  telling 
where  he  came  from. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  believe  that  this 
revolution  was  worked  in  a  day.  When  the 
writer  arrived  in  Chentu  on  the  1st  day  of  Jan- 
uary, 1909,  a  few  beggars  were  still  to  be  found 
plying  their  trade  with  rice  bowl  and  whining 
complaint  in  the  old-fashioned  way,  but  these 
were  mostly  outside  of  the  wall,  and  even  they 
disappeared  before  long.  Now  and  then  a  man 
would  appear  begging  on  the  streets,  but  the 
police  soon  took  care  of  him.  A  letter  written 
from  Chentu  in  December,  1909,  well  describes 
the  present  situation  as  follows:  "The  youth 
of  the  West  are  being  educated  for  future  use- 
fulness. Extensive  plants  for  housing  boys  who 
have  no  particular  vocation  have  been  con- 
structed. They  are,  in  fact,  large  industrial 
schools  over  which  broods  the  military  spirit. 
A  boy  beggar  is  a  stranger  in  Chentu,  and  boys 
idling  about  the  streets  are  few." 

Other  cities  tributary  to  Chentu,  fired  by  its 
example,  were  not  slow  in  following  suit,  and 
when  in  the  summer  of  1909  the  writer  toured 
the    Chentu    plain,    visiting    the    walled    cities 


IN'CEXSE    BURNER. 


Grainger,    photo. 


113 

scattered  about  it,  beggars  were  scarce  and  hard 
to  find.  In  many  places  they  did  not  seem  to 
exist.  Even  at  Lu  Jo,  situated  more  than  two 
hundred  miles  aw^ay  on  the  Yangtze  river,  the 
same  system  was  in  process  of  being  established. 
The  writer  is  aware  that  exception  may  be 
taken  to  the  above  statements  on  account  of  the 
blind  fiddlers  to  be  seen  wandering  the  streets. 
I  am  perfectly  well  aware  of  their  existence  and 
also  know  that  many  of  them  are  frauds,  but 
there  is  as  much  difference  between  them  and 
the  old-fashioned  Chinese  beggar  as  there  is  be- 
tween daylight  and  dark.  They  do  not  impor- 
tune, and  their  music  is  supposed  to  be  a  return 
for  anything  which  may  be  given. 

In  the  United  States  some  authorities  hold 
that  the  man  without  money,  without  visible 
means  of  support,  is  entitled  to  occupy  that  por- 
tion of  the  earth's  surface  lying  between  the 
limits  of  high  and  low  tide.  Other  authorities 
deny  this.  In  western  China  there  is  a  place  for 
such  a  man ! 

Another  and  still  more  important  and  far- 
reaching  change  is  that  which  has  come  over 
the  educational  system.     Who  has  not  heard  of 


114 

the  old  system  and  the  famous  examination 
hails  at  the  provincial  capitals? — long  rows  of 
cells  in  which  the  contestants  were  immured 
during  the  tri-ennial  examinations;  success 
meaning  that  the  candidate  was  eligible  for  the 
still  higher  tests  held  at  Peking. 

The  old  system  of  education  was  analogous 
to  that  which  Tom  Brown  received  at  Rugby 
and  Oxford.  Just  as  Tom  Brown  was  famil- 
iarized with  the  classics  of  Rome  and  Greece, 
and  taught  to  compose  both  prose  and  poetry 
in  those  languages,  so  was  the  educated  Chinese 
given  a  mastery  over  the  classics  of  his  country 
and  taught  to  compose  both  prose  and  poetry 
in  the  classical  Chinese,  which  differs  almost  as 
much  from  the  language  of  the  common  people 
as  does  Latin  from  English.  Just  as  Tom 
Brown  looked  down  on  the  plumber  and  re- 
garded him  as  uneducated  man,  while  realiz- 
ing that  he  possessed  a  technical  knowledge  of 
his  trade,  so  did  the  old-fashioned  Chinese  look 
down  on  the  foreigner  with  his  knowledge  of 
modern  languages,  science  and  the  mechanical 
arts.  However,  the  literati  of  China  had  one 
advantage  over  Tom  Brown  in  that  the  classics 


115 

which  they  studied  were  filled  with  the  great 
moral  teachings  of  the  Chinese  philosophers, 
while  the  English  student  was  familiarized 
with  the  ribald  poetry  of  Horace. 

Since  the  suppression  of  the  Boxer  outbreak, 
the  entire  system  of  private  study  and  tri-ennial 
examinations  has  been  done  away  with.  In 
many  places  the  old  rows  of  examination  cells 
have  been  torn  away  and  have  been  replaced 
with  modern  schools.  Such  was  the  case  at 
Chentu,  capital  of  the  province  in  which 
the  writer  was  located.  In  the  very  heart  of  the 
city  lies  a  walled  enclosure  about  half  a  mile 
long.  The  wall  is  enormously  heavy  in  front 
where  it  is  pierced  by  three  great  tunnel-like 
entrances.  This  was  probably  once  the  abode  of 
the  Kings  before  Kubla  Khan  conquered  the 
province  as  related  by  Marco  Polo.  Ever  since 
those  days  it  has  been  dedicated  to  official  uses. 
To-day,  it  is  literally  filled  with  government 
schools.  Some  of  these  are  industrial,  others 
normal,  others  hard  to  classify.  One  would 
imagine  such  an  area  would  hold  all  the  re- 
formatory and  educational  institutions  for 
which  there  would  be  any  need  in  the  city,  but 


SERVANT    AXIJ    POLICEMAN. 


Spragnc,    photc 


117 

as  a  matter  of  fact  there  are  many  more  in  other 
quarters.  To  adequately  describe  them  all 
would  fill  a  volume.  The  writer  has  no  inten- 
tion of  trying  to  do  anything  more  than  touch 
upon  the  subject  here.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the 
new  system  of  secondary  and  higher  education 
recognizes  the  value  of  a  knowledge  of  modern 
languages  and  science.  In  all  of  the  more  im- 
portant cities  of  the  eighteen  provinces,  it  has 
provided  for  middle  schools  at  which  those 
subjects  are  commenced.  These  are  supple- 
mented by  Provincial  Colleges  located  at  the 
capitals,  where  the  work  begun  in  the  Middle 
Schools  can  be  carried  further.  Wherever  he 
went  in  Western  China,  the  writer  found  the 
Middle  Schools,  frequently  in  cities  whose  size 
would  hardly  seem  to  warrant  their  presence, 
and  it  was  everywhere  evident  that  the  public 
took  a  pride  and  an  interest  in  them.  In  one 
city,  a  great  official  yamen  had  been  given  up 
by  a  high  mandarin  and  had  been  transformed 
into  the  city's  Middle  School.  In  other  places, 
temples  possessing  valuable  sites  had  been  uti- 
lized. In  every  case  the  name  of  the  school  was 
blazoned   forth   in  enormous  characters   to   ad- 


118 

vertise  the  fact  that  the  city  possessed  one. 
The  writer  inspected  many  of  these  institutions 
throughout  the  province,  and  ever  found  them 
neat  and  adequate.  Their  equipment  is  always 
after  the  same  pattern — dormitories,  study  halls 
and  lecture  rooms.  The  latter  would  frequently 
be  a  credit  to  an  American  college.  It  is  only 
in  a  few  of  the  higher  institutions  of  learning — 
colleges  and  normal  schools  located  at  Chentu — 
that  laboratories  have  been  installed. 

But  the  greatest  change  of  all  is  that  with  re- 
spect to  opium.  In  former  days  an  account  of 
travel  in  China  which  did  not  mention  the  drug 
was  like  the  play  of  Hamlet  with  Hamlet  left 
out,  so  important  a  feature  was  it  in  the  life  of 
the  nation.  Globe  trotters  have  exhausted  their 
stocks  of  adjectives  in  describing  the  glory  and 
gorgeousness  of  the  fields  of  the  opium  poppy. 
Of  the  province  in  the  heart  of  which  the 
writer  was  located  was  written,  "It  is  the  seat 
of  opium  culture  in  China,  patches  of  poppies 
flaunting  in  the  gorges,  and  great  plains  and 
valleys  above  ablaze  with  the  seductive  flowers 
which  furnish  three-fourths  of  China's  opium." 

When  Mrs.  Bishop  was  approaching  Chentu, 


119 

she  wrote,  "Waves  of  color  on  slope  and  plain 
rolled  before  the  breeze.  Houses  were  almost 
submerged  by  the  colored  billows.  Far  and 
near,  along  roads  and  streams,  round  stately 
temples  and  prosperous  farm-houses,  rippled 
and  surged  these  millions  of  corollas." 

In  every  book  on  China  appeared  such  head- 
ings as,  "Thousands  of  opium  victims  annually." 
"Opium  victims  must  die."  "Opium  cures  and 
asylums."  "Missionaries'  opium  refuges."  "Im- 
possible for  Chinese  to  resist  the  subtle  fascina- 
tion of  the  drug."    "China's  darkest  cloud." 

But  when  the  writer  arrived  at  Chentu,  Jan- 
uary 1st,  1909,  the  imperial  edict  had  gone 
forth  that  the  cultivation  of  opium  must  cease, 
and  cease  it  did.  Not  everywhere  at  once,  but 
soon  nevertheless.  The  month  before,  every 
opium  shop  in  the  city  had  been  closed  by  the 
officials.  During  my  entire  stay  in  western 
China,  I  never  once  saw  a  field  of  the  poppy. 
While  that  province  was  slower  than  any  other 
province  as  regards  making  rigid  enforcement 
of  the  edict,  yet  the  reports  from  all  sources  in 
1910  prove  that  the  opium  culture  is  a  thing  of 
the  past.     This  shows  what  power  the  officials 


A   COUNTRY    HOME. 


Sprague.    pholo. 


121 

have  when  they  choose  to  exert  it  in  a  country 
where  the  citizens  are  not  allowed  to  own  fire- 
arms. Their  method  is — first  to  educate  the 
people  by  means  of  printed  proclamations  as 
to  the  desirability  of  any  reform,  and  then  to 
remove  temptation  from  their  path.  In  the  case 
of  the  opium,  if  any  farmer  tries  to  raise  a  field 
of  the  poppy,  soldiers  are  sent  to  uproot  the 
crop. 

But  to  say  that  the  importation  and  use  of  the 
drug  has  entirely  ceased  would  be  a  fabrication. 
In  the  early  months  of  1910,  it  was  no  unusual 
sight  on  the  principal  highway  in  western 
China  to  see  strings  of  more  than  one  hundred 
coolies  carrying  opium  imported  from  British 
India  up  the  country.  Nevertheless,  conditions 
have  so  changed  that  foreign  residents  of  that 
province  have  told  me  that  they  were  afraid 
to  describe  conditions  as  they  existed  three  years 
before,  for  fear  their  statements  would  sound 
absolutely  incredible  to  one  who  had  only  seen 
the  situation  as  it  is  to-day. 

We  have  been  accustomed  to  consider  China 
as  the  stand-still  kingdom,  the  do-nothing  king- 
dom, the  land  where  the  people  are  wedded  to 


122 

the  ways  of  their  forefathers  from  which  they 
will  not  depart.  But  after  residing  in  the  coun- 
try, the  writer  began  to  doubt  whether  conser- 
vatism is  any  more  natural  to  the  Chinaman 
than  it  is  to  the  average  European.  Indeed,  it 
would  be  easy  to  cite  instances  which  would 
seem  to  indicate  the  contrary.  Permit  me  to 
illustrate.  I  have  told  how  the  Chinese  estab- 
lished a  steam  passenger  service  over  that  por- 
tion of  the  upper  Yangtze  which  lies  between 
the  former  head  of  steam  navigation  and  the 
great  commercial  city  of  western  China,  Chung- 
king, and  how  at  the  time  of  my  departure  a 
steamer  was  flying  back  and  forth  over  the  five 
hundred  mile  stretch  as  smoothly  and  swiftly 
as  the  shuttle  of  a  sewing  machine.  Before 
leaving  Ichang,  I  met  a  Chinese  official  who 
was  waiting  there  the  few  days  that  must  elapse 
before  the  steamer  left  on  its  next  regular  trip 
up  the  river,  intending  of  course  to  travel  by 
that  conveyance.  And  yet,  on  the  day  before,  a 
party  of  English  naval  officers  had  started  up 
the  Yangtze  in  the  old-fashioned  house-boats, 
which  would  consume  a  month  in  reaching  their 
destination;  vessels  as  antiquated  as  Noah's  ark. 


123 

In  other  words,  the  Chinese  were  ready  and 
quick  to  adopt  the  new,  expeditious  method  of 
travel  as  soon  as  it  was  available,  while  the  for- 
eigners clung  obstinately  to  the  old  style,  shut- 
ting their  eyes  to  the  fact  that  it  had  been 
superseded. 

While  the  writer  is  not  positively  informed, 
it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  steamer  completed  two 
round  trips  before  the  officers  reached  Chung- 
king. Twice  they  met  the  steamer  descending, 
twice  they  saw  it  pass  them  bound  up  stream. 
It  is  barely  possible  that,  by  the  second  time 
they  saw  it  glide  on  and  leave  them,  they  had 
lost  some  of  their  conservatism. 

Another  case  of  ultra-conservatism  on  the 
part  of  the  foreign  resident  in  China  comes  to 
mind.  A  few  days  before  the  incident  above 
narrated,  a  party  of  missionaries  had  started  up 
the  river  for  western  China.  Their  leader  was 
an  old  fellow  known  as  Dr.  Wilson,  w^ho  had 
been  in  that  country  I  don't  know  how  long, 
but  had  been  away  on  furlough  two  years. 
When  starting  up  stream,  he  had  insisted  on 
taking  his  silver  with  him  in  the  form  of  ingots, 
instead  of  the  more  convenient  dollars  which 


A  SHADY   LANE. 


Sprague,   photo. 


125 

are  now  universally  current  in  that  country. 
He  was  told  by  the  Ichang  missionaries  that 
the  ingots  were  out  of  date  and  that  he  had 
better  take  dollars,  but  the  obstinate  fellow  in- 
sisted that  because,  when  he  first  went  to  Chen- 
tu,  dollars  were  not  current  there,  such  must 
still  be  the  case,  and  he  departed  up  the  river 
with  his  lump  silver.  Even  the  missionary 
who  told  the  writer  the  incident,  a  person  of 
the  most  solemn,  stupid  type,  could  not  help 
cracking  a  wooden  grin  at  the  old  man's  ex- 
pense. 

I  have  told  how  beggary  has  been  almost 
suppressed  in  western  China,  but  in  the  for- 
eign settlement  at  Shanghai,  a  city  entirely  in 
the  hands  of  Europeans  and  Americans,  and 
governed  by  a  municipal  council  from  which 
Chinese  are  rigorously  excluded,  the  old-fash- 
ioned Chinese  beggar  still  wanders  about  the 
streets.  If  you  enquire  why  they  are  allowed, 
you  will  be  solemnly  told  that  the  beggars' 
guild  would  not  permit  otherwise.  Only  a  per- 
son who  knows  what  a  Chinese  beggar  is  like 
can  fully  appreciate  the  unconscious  humor  of 
the  reply. 


126 

Reports  of  China's  awakening  have  been 
coming  in  from  many  sources  during  the  last 
few  years,  and  the  writer  has  tried  to  sum 
things  up,  but  has  really  only  been  able  to 
touch  a  few  points.  Fifty  years  ago,  Japan 
was  more  backward  than  China.  Since  then, 
the  Chinese  have  seen  the  Japanese  raise  them- 
selves until  they  rank  in  arts,  arms,  and  science 
with  the  leading  nations  of  the  world.  The 
Chinese  ask,  "Why  cannot  we  do  the  same?" 
However,  don't  imagine  that  you  would  find 
yourself  in  a  modern  nation,  were  you  to  visit 
the  Celestial  empire.  The  country  is  still  in- 
credibly primitive  in  most  respects.  While  it 
is  true  that  railroads  are  building,  as  yet  they 
are  few,  and  great  sections  of  the  empire 
possess  none.  Ofif  of  them,  man  is  the  beast  of 
burden.  Many  of  the  innovations  which  the 
Chinese  are  introducing  become  so  Chinesi- 
fied  in  the  process  that  they  seem  more  curious 
to  an  American  than  the  things  which  they  sup- 
plant. Many  marvelous  changes  have  come 
over  that  country  in  the  last  few  years,  but  it  is 
still  China  and  always  will  be. 


127 


POSTSCRIPT 

After  one  has  passed  through  a  series  of 
novel  and  surprising  experiences,  memory 
loves  to  recall  them  and  dwell  upon  them. 
Even  now,  when  I  sit  and  doze  before  the  fire, 
visions  of  old  Chentu  days  rise  before  me.  Per- 
haps I  dream  of  the  city  in  summer,  when  the 
principal  thoroughfares  are  roofed  over  with 
thick  mats  to  protect  them  from  the  fierce  rays 
of  a  semi-tropical  sun,  until  they  are  trans- 
formed into  dim  shady  tunnels  where  the 
thronging  natives  come  and  go,  and  bearers  of 
burdens  wearily  wend  their  way,  while  on 
either  side  the  wares  of  the  merchants  are 
ranged  in  their  open-fronted  shops  so  that  the 
scene  resembles  a  great  bazaar. 

Again,  the  vision  changes,  and  I  seem  to  be 
wandering  through  the  shady  precincts  of 
some  gloomy  old  temple,  where  tall  feathery 
bamboos  nod  and  sway  in  the  passing  breeze, 
and    dark    funereal    pines    stand    guard,    and 


128 

monstrous  idols,  gaudy  with  gilt  and  lacquer, 
gaze  solemnly  back  at  the  curious  visitor  from 
the  western  world.  The  incessant  beating  of 
the  drum,  and  the  hollow  boom  of  the  great 
bronze  bell,  betoken  the  fact  that  the  priests 
are  gathered  at  their  devotions. 

Then  I  rouse  myself,  and  it  seems  that  these 
recollections  are  but  dreams.  It  seems  impos- 
sible that  any  cities  exist  in  which  the  honk  of 
the  automobile,  the  clang  and  whirr  of  the  elec- 
tric car,  are  not  heard.  It  is  impossible  that  I 
ever  passed  through  any  such  experiences. 
They  must  belong  to  "such  stufif  as  dreams  are 
made  of,"  and  I  dismiss  them  from  mind.  But 
before  they  fade  from  memory  altogether,  I 
have  embodied  some  of  them  in  the  preceding 
narratives,  and  now  place  them  before  the  pub- 
lic. I  trust  .hey  have  sufficient  novelty  to  com-  J^ 
mend  them  to  the  general  reader. 

Com- 
ding, 
weai 
an? 
vlth 


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